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The six historical viewpoints in psychology
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Psychophysics
Matthew Chavez
Del Mar College
Psychophysics Psychology has many fields that study different parts of the human brain. The branch of Psychology that studies the relationship between a stimulus and the perception of that stimulus is known as Psychophysics. Psychophysics has it’s foundation in the work of Gustav Theodor Fechner, a German scientist who studied the response to physical stimuli during the 1800’s. Currently, the two main areas that a Psychophysicists looks at when studying the brain's relationship to a stimulus are the absolute, minimum, and maximum thresholds. Psychophysics attempts to bridge the actual physical stimulus with the mind's perception of that stimulus. The study of psychophysics relies
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Vision: A person holding a candle 30 miles away. Hearing: The ticking of a watch 20 feet away in a quiet environment. Taste: One drop of quinine sulfate in 250 gallons of water. Smell: One drop of perfume in a six-room house. Touch: The force of a bee’s wing onto a person’s cheek from one centimeter. In 1941, a vision scientist named Selig Hecht and his colleagues at Columbia university made a reliable measurement of the absolute threshold of the human eye. In this study, they found how many photons were needed to create an image. They began by putting subjects into complete darkness and waiting for the subject's eyes to adapt. They then flashed them with a blue-green light in order to get the most sensitive part of the human eye to react. The results of this study were that the absolute threshold of the human eye is between 54 and 148 protons. More recently, researchers have done complex experiments on the internet. Max-Planck-Institute for Biological Cybernetics conducted internet studies concerning absolute thresholds. One study asked 1089 subjects to judge pictures of faces and guess their genders. Out of 1089 subject, 374 made an error on one or more of the faces. Interestingly, 86% guessed the face belonged to a male when it was actually a female. This provided information about absolute threshold by showing that some people could see the difference between male and female features, but there were some people that could not see the differences. Another study conducted by this institute used six pictures with two heads. The pictures were taken with different lighting and orientations. In this study, 487 test subjects
3. Because he believes that "real men have no fears," 8-year-old George has difficulty accepting the fact that his father is fearful of losing his job. George's experience is most directly explained by:
3. According to Emily's grandfather, Adolf Hitler's obvious emotional instability made it clear that Germany would inevitably lose World War II. The grandfather's claim best illustrates:
Chapter 4 discusses the several states of consciousness: the nature of consciousness, sleep and dreams, psychoactive drugs, hypnosis, and meditation. Consciousness is a crucial part of human experience, it represents that private inner mind where we think, feel, plan, wish, pray, omagine, and quietly relive experiences. William James described the mind as a stream of consciousness, a continuous flow of changing sensations, images thoughts, and feelings. Consciousness has two major parts: awareness and arousal. Awareness includes the awareness of the self and thoughts about one's experiences. Arousal is the physiological state of being engaged with the environment. Theory of mind refers to individuals understanding that they and others think,
Schacter, D. L., Gilbert, D. T., & Wegner, D. M. (2010). Psychology. (2nd ed., p. 600). New York: Worth Pub.
The human mind is one of the most complex structures the gods had created. It is difficult to understand each brain process as every human being possesses his or her own distinguished thought patterns with different levels of complexities. A person’s mind greatly influences his behavior, which eventually transforms into his habit by becoming embedded into his character. Today, the world of psychology tries to understand everything that a mind can create. However, even before the field of Psychology was introduced and brought into practice, some American writers threw a spotlight on the mechanism of the human brain in their works. On top of this list is an American writer, Edgar Allan
The study of psychology began as a theoretical subject a branch of ancient philosophy, and later as a part of biological sciences and physiology. However, over the years, it has grown into a rigorous science and a separate discipline, with its own sets of guidance and experimental techniques. This paper aims to study the various stages that the science of psychology passed through to reach its contemporary status, and their effects on its development. It begins with an overview of the historical and philosophical basis of psychology, discusses the development of the various schools of thought, and highlights their effects on contemporary personal and professional decision-making.
The theory our learning team is studying is the psychodynamic approach or what is sometimes called psychoanalytic approach. The main contributors to Psychodynamic approaches was the founder Sigmund Freud (1859-1939), Anna Freud (1895-1982) gave significant contribution to the psychodynamics of adolescence and Erik Erickson (1902-1994) called the “new” Freud but with an emphasis on ego (conscious) forces, termed as psychosocial theory (Craig & Dunn, p 11-13). Psychodynamics is the explanation or interpretation (as of behavior or mental states) in terms of mental or emotional forces or processes (www.merriam-webster.com)
In the world of cinema, there’s almost always a discussion regarding what scenes would be suitable for the grasping imagination of any audience, young or old. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film, Psycho, sparked a plug for the movie industry as it was the first movie of its kind to display such graphic scenes of sex and violence to a worldwide audience.
The aim of this essay is to analyse four theoretical approaches to psychology, including psychodynamic, humanistic, cognitive and behavioural. Analysing each approach in detail and identifying key features the approach uses to explain human behaviour. This essay will also analyse how successful each approach is in it methods, evidence gathering techniques and analyse how it can be applied to giving reasons for particular human behaviours. As well as analysing each approaches failings in it theories, methods and evidence gathering techniques.
Psychodynamic therapy, focuses on unconscious mind and how past experiences, inner thoughts, fears, and emotions The main goal of psychodynamic therapy is for clients to be self-aware of the past and how it effects who they are in the present. This type of therapy focuses on the underlying problems and emotions that influenced the client’s behavior. (Psych Central, 2016)
Mary Harron, the writer and director of American Psycho, has gained a reputation as a high-ranking female director in the American film industry. This is in spite of the fact that she has directed and released only four movies in the span of fifteen years. She often points to her gender and discovery of feminism as the reason why she creates films that go beyond righting the wrongs done to women by society. Instead, through her casting and filming process, she strives to ensure that the audience has a clear understanding of the manner in which women are unable to handle themselves in an environment that does not have right skills and knowledge to deal with them (Kapica). For instance, in American Psycho, Harron sought to film characters who
Weiner, I. Healy, A. Freedheim, D. Proctor,R.W., Schinka,J.A. (2003) Handbook of Psychology: Experimental psychology,18, pp 500
With each of our senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, and hear), information is transmitted to the brain. Psychologists find it problematic to explain the processes in which the physical energy that is received by the sense organs can form the foundation of perceptual experience. Perception is not a direct mirroring of stimulus, but a compound messy pattern dependent on the simultaneous activity of neurons. Sensory inputs are somehow converted into perceptions of laptops, music, flowers, food, and cars; into sights, sounds, smells, taste ...
Well, let's take a look at the brain. From being in class, my awareness about what I'm doing, what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing, what I'm thinking has come to reflect upon not just what, but how is it all being done by my brain. This morning I woke up, my eyes opened, I looked out my window, I saw the sun rising, it was this beautifully deep yellow/orange color. I thought, "How beautiful" and I smiled with a sense and feeling of wonderment. It could be said that I experienced nothing out of the ordinary this morning. Yet, if I could narrate these few activities in terms of the networking of neurons resulting in my eyes opening, my sight of the sun, my ability to perceive its color, my inner acknowledgment of its beauty and the emotions that sight evoked in me, you would be reading for a very long time and what I did this morning would indeed present itself in quite an extraordinary light. It is in recognition of this, with respect to the brain's aptitudes, that Howard Hughes in his paper, "Seeing, Hearing and Smelling the World" quoted May Pines in expressing, "We can recognize a friend instantly-full face, in profile, or even by the back of his head. We can distinguish hundreds of colors and possibly as many as 10,000 smells. We can feel a feather as it brushes our skin, hear the faint rustle of a leaf. It all seems so effortless: we open our eyes or ears and let the world stream in. Yet anything we see, hear, feel, smell, or taste requires billions of nerve cells to flash urgent messages along linked pathways and feedback loops in our brains, performing intricate calculations that scientists have only begun to decipher"(1).
Throughout the ages, humans have had an inherent interest in studying the complex area of human behaviour, even before psychology was established as a science. Because the study of behaviour is so broad and multifaceted, its scientific study poses particular challenges. Therefore, it can be beneficial to approach the scientific study of human behaviour from the perspective of cognitive psychology. This is the study of cognition, the mental processes that underlie human behaviour (Ling & Cattling, 2012).