Phineas Gage and Alien Hand Syndrome
In this paper I will be discussing two different topics. I will be talking about Phineas Gage and his astonishing story and then will be talking about the creepy topic of alien hand syndrome. Not only are these topics amazing, but they are also play a big role in psychology.
Phineas Gage was a foreman for a railroad crew in the 1800’s. At the age of 25 Phineas’s life was dramatically changed forever. While working at the railroads on September 13, 1848, he was packing explosive powder into a hole when thee powder suddenly detonated. The rod he was using was then blown upward sending the rod threw one of his cheeks all the way up through the brain and out the skull. This rod took out most of his frontal lobe, but surprisingly enough, he survived and was able to speak and talk. For this reason he is one of the most
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famous patients that neuroscience has ever seen. Not only was he a big part of neurology, but also a big part of psychology. Because of the change in his personality, psychologists were able to find out that the frontal lobe was responsible for the personality part of the brain. The whole story is interesting but the most amazing part was that he survived. Most would think that something like that would instantly kill a person, but in Gage’s case, he survived and was able to take himself to the nearest doctor. Like Gage’s story, there are plenty more surprising stories that almost seem to insane to be real like the next topic, alien hand syndrome. Alien hand syndrome is a condition that makes a person completely unaware of what one of their hands is doing, almost as if it has a mind and personality of its own.
This syndrome can also be referred to as Dr.Strangelove because of a previous movie that had shown this syndrome. The actions of this hand are caused by damage to the frontal lobe of the brain which controls personality and the corpus colosseum which will provide symptoms to the non-dominant hand making them do what they do. I watched multiple videos of this syndrome and was completely blown away. The way the hand does these things on its own is extraordinary and creepy at the same time. Sadly, there is no known cure for this syndrome leaving these people out of the control of their hands. In some cases of Alien Hand Syndrome few people have been able to slowly grow out of it. As for the others, they have to learn how to do everyday things while their hand is acting up. Some people go as far as wearing gloves, to keeping their hand hidden away so that they do not have to deal with what some of the people with this syndrome consider an
embarrassment. These two topics are absolutely phenomenal. To some, they may seem like stories that are so far out that they are hard to believe. The case of Phineas Gage and Alien Hand Syndrome are two very true cases that play a large roll in psychology. Later in time, we will have enough technology and information that we will be able to learn many new things about psychology.
Lawrence Willoughby, an African American male, was born in 1881 in Pitt County, North Carolina. He was the son of Lannie Anderson and X Willoughby. Lawrence married at 22,a woman by the name of Jennie Best on December 20, 1903. Records says that the two married in Pitt County, North Carolina. They had eight children in 13 years. He died on August 4, 1951, in Greenville, North Carolina, at the age of 70.
First, he stayed conscious during his entire accident, which was diagnosed as an open brain injury; in other words, he was alive to feel the pain of the iron rod shooting through his head. Page six of Phineas Gage proves this is shocking by stating “Amazingly, Phineas is still alive… a minute later he speaks.” Second, as the iron rod damaged his brain (causing social problems), the iron rod damaged his skull and face. Gage had huge gashes, a cracked skull, a major loss of blood, and many more injuries revolving his head. On page nine of Phineas Gage, Gage’s immediate physical adversities are described: “He cleans the skin around the hole, extracts the small fragments of bone, and gently presses the larger pieces of skull back in place… he pulls the loose skin back into position…” As anyone can notice, Gage’s physical adversities were very, very harsh, and won’t compare to the adversities faced by Lacks and
John Szyc, Gregory Godzik, Sam Stapleton, and Robert Peist; what do all of these names
Jaegwon Kim thinks that multiple realizability of mental properties would bring about the conclusion that psychology is most likely not a science. Several functionalists, specially, Fodor, take up the opposing stance to Kim, supporting that the multiple realizability of mental states is one of the reasons why psychology is an autonomous and justifiable science. Essentially, Kim think that in order for mental states to be multiply realizable then psychology must be fundamentally broken; with human psychology encompassing properties realized for humans and alien psychology encompassing those mental states realized in the alien way etc. I will demonstrate that even if one supports and allows the principles behind Kim’s argument they do not result in his final conclusion of psychology failing to be a science. By attacking his principle of Casual Individuation of Kinds I will show that Kim has failed to find the correct conclusion. Furthermore, I will consider a possible objection that Kim might have to my stance and give a short rebuttle. I will conclude by explicating Jerry Fodor’s account of what is Kim’s essential problem is. By showing that Kim’s conclusion fails it will entail that Fodor’s conclusion is more viable in reality.
Charles Cullen was born on February 22, 1960, in West Orange, New Jersey. He was the youngest of eight siblings. His father worked as a bus driver, and died at age 58 when Cullen was only seven months old. Two of his siblings also died in adulthood. His mother was a stay at home mom who raised the eight children. Charles Cullen described his life as miserable, he attempted suicide at age nine by drinking chemicals he got out of a chemistry set, he attempted suicide a total of twenty times throughout his life. On December 6, 1977, when Cullen was 17 years old his mother died in a car accident, while his sister was behind the wheel. After this accident, Charles Cullen was devastated and decided to drop out of high school and join the Navy. Cullen
Nathan Hale was born on June sixth, 1755, in Coventry, Connecticut. Richard Hale and Elizabeth Hale were his parents. Nathan had nine siblings. Enoch Hale was the most acknowledged sibling of Nathan Hale. Education was important to both of them. In addition to learning, Nathan was interested in wrestling, football, broad jumping, and women. Resources state that he was “the idol of all his acquaintances”, which was the reason for everyone’s admiration for him. This was one important part of Hale’s remembrance.
Gage even suggested that he didn't wish to see his friends, since he would be back to work in "a day or two" anyways” (Cherry 2016). This would prove to be far from the truth in the coming months, Gage was not able to rejoin his crew at the railroad company due to his dynamic change in personality. Cherry writes, “Post-accident, these reports describe him as a changed man, suggesting that the injury had transformed him into a surly, aggressive drunkard who was unable to hold down a job” (Cherry 2016). Truly amazed at his ability to even live a some-what normal life was past expectations, although Phineas had trouble with his personality and other area, he did remarkably well in life. This help strength the argument for localization and took research to greater level for decades to
Haney, Craig; Zimbardo, Philip. American Psychologist, Jul98, Vol. 53 Issue 7, p709, 19p, 2 Black and White Photographs,
In the middle of the Hewitt Quadrangle, commonly called Beinecke plaza, a single, 73-foot-tall, gray painted-wood flagpole stands with granite steps leading to the top of its base, where an inscribed plaque at its bottom reading “In memory of Augustus Canfield Ledyard” along with a further description of his connection to Yale and the U.S. Army. Atop this high pole, above the National Ensign blowing in the wind, a laurel wreath surrounds a spike pointing straight up towards the sky. Members of the Yale community walk through this plaza, by the flagpole, every day whether on their way to class, the Beinecke rare book library, the Commons dining hall to eat lunch, or some other important event in their daily lives, but few seem to stop to look
Hergenhahn, B. R. (2009). An introduction to the history of psychology (6th ed., p. 224,
Freud, Sigmund. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. Ed. James Strachey. Trans. James Strachey. Standard. Vol. 22. London: Hogarth Press, 1964.
The aim of this essay is to clarify the basic principles of Freud’s theories and to raise the main issues.
Freud, Sigumund. "The Uncanny." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. New York: Blackwell, 1998.
In this essay I am looking at where Psychology as a discipline has come from and what affects these early ideas have had on psychology today, Psychology as a whole has stemmed from a number of different areas of study from Physics to Biology,
Before long, however, he faced patients whose disorders made no neurological sense. For example, a patient may have lost all feeling in one of their hands, but there is no sensory nerve that would numb their entire hand and nothing else when damaged. Freud’s search for a cause for such disorders set his mind running in a direction destined to change human self-understanding. He believed that some neurological disorders could have psychological causes. By observing patients with these disorders, Freud was led to his discovery of the unconscious (Myers & Dewall, pg# 573, 2015). Furthermore, he theorized that the lost feeling in the individual’s hand might have been caused by a fear of touching their