• Shuffle
    Toggle On
    Toggle Off
  • Alphabetize
    Toggle On
    Toggle Off
  • Front First
    Toggle On
    Toggle Off
  • Both Sides
    Toggle On
    Toggle Off
  • Read
    Toggle On
    Toggle Off
Reading...
Front

Card Range To Study

through

image

Play button

image

Play button

image

Progress

1/40

Click to flip

Use LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to navigate between flashcards;

Use UP and DOWN arrow keys to flip the card;

H to show hint;

A reads text to speech;

40 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
Aristotle's cardiac hypothesis
proposing the heart as the seat of such emotions as love and anger (dominated for next 500 years)
ventricular localization hypothesis (cell doctrine)
postulated that mental as well as spiritual processes reside in the ventricular chambers of the brain (endured for 2000 years)
Galen's four humors
blood, mucus, yellow bile, and black bile
Descartes
mind-body dualism
Thomas Willis
english anatomist, best known for his work on blood circulation in the brain, theorized that all mental faculties reside in the corpus striatum, a structure deep within the cerebral hemispheres
Franz Gall
Austrian anatomist borrowed from the concept of geography, postulated that the brain consists of a number of separate organs, each responsible for a basic psychological trait such as friendliness, courage, or combativeness.
Limitations of Gall's work
Gall's work was severely limited by faculty psychology, the predominant psychological theory of that time, which held that such abilities as reading, writing, or intelligence were independent, indivisible faculties. Such specific brain functions, therefore, were performed in isolation from functional systems in other parts of the brain.
localization theory
By assigning specific functions to particular places in the cerebral cortex, Gall formulated the basis of the localization theory of bain function.
Gall was right about the frontal lobes
Gall correctly suggested that because their complexity is greatest in humans, the most intellectual parts of the brain are the frontal lobes.
Phrenology
From Gall's basic theory of localization, the "science" of phrenology was born. This theory holds that if a given brain area is enlarged, then the corresponding area of the skull will also be enlarged. Conversely, a depression in the skull signals an underdeveloped area of the cortex. The theory of phrenology was entirely inaccurate.
Phrenology Cap
Phrenology, in its most popular form, involves feeling the cranial bumps to ascertain which cerebral areas are largest. Sophisticated mechanical equipment was developed, such as the phrenology cap, to accurately identify bumps an indentations on the skull to make "precise" predictions about psychological strengths and weaknesses.
Johann Spurzheim
Student of Gall, who carried on his phrenology teachings, lecturing extensively on phrenology in the U.S., and the movement became increasingly popular.
Phrenology: Racism and Sexism
Phrenology in its simplistic form had followers who made sweeping statements about the brains and minds of men and women and cross-cultural comparisons. They suggested that men and white people were superior.
Broca
Broca announced to the medical community that motor speech was speech was specifically located in the posterior, inferior region of the left frontal lobe.
Aphasia
Broca's landmark contribution was in understanding the origins of aphasia.
Broca's aphasia (nonfluent aphasia)
An inability to talk because the musculature of speech organs do not receive appropriate brain signals.
Broca's area
Articulate speech is localized in and controlled by Broca's area. (Expressive speech)
Wernicke
A decade after Broca's discover, Wernicke announced that the understanding of speech was located in the superior, posterior aspects of the temporal lobe.
Fluent Aphasia
Fluent aphasia is the result of damage to Wernicke's area. The patient is still able to talk, but his speech makes no sense and sounds like some unknown foreign language.
Wernicke's area
A specific area important for word comprehension. (Receptive speech)
Sigmund Freud
In "An Understanding of Aphasia" Freud criticizes Wernicke's and Broca's localization doctrine of aphasia. Freud pointed out, quite correctly, that the Broca and Wernicke centers are little more than nodal points in a general and complicated network of neurons. Freud proposed that Broca's and Wernicke's areas were not self-acting agencies and their significance was simply due to their anatomic location (in the former case, to the motor areas of the brain, and in the latter, to the entry of the fibers from the acoustic nuclei).
agnosia
Freud also described the distinction between the ability to recognize an object and the inability to name it, agnosia; this terms remains in use today.
Pierre Flourens
Flourens (1794-1867) was the foremost early advocate of an alternative to localization theories. He attempted to disprove Gall's localization theory.
ablation experiment
To support his beliefs, Flourens developed the ablation experiment, in which removing any part of the brain in birds let to generalized disorders of behavior.
Flourens conclusions
Sensory input at an elementary level is localized, but the process of perception involves the whole brain. Loss of function depends on the extent of damage, not on the location. All cerebral material is equipotential, that is, if sufficient cortical material is intact, the remaining material will take over the functions of any missing brain tissue. Flourens suggested that the brain operated in an integrated fashion, not in discrete faculties, and that mental functions depend on the brain functioning as a whole. Thus, the size of the injury, rather than its location, determines the effects of brain injury.
Criticisms of Flourens
First, he used animals with brains so small that any ablation would invade more than one functional area. Second, he observed only motor behavior - that is, behaviors such as eating or wing flapping - whereas the localizationists were mostly interested in more complex faculties such as friendship or intellect.
Two important neuropsychological findings also challenged strict localization theory.
1. Munk & mind-blindness
2. Babinski & anosognosia
mind-blindness
Munk found that experimental lesions in the association cortex of a dog produced temporary mind-blindness: The animal could see objects but failed to recognize their significants (e.g., as objects of fear).
anosognosia
Babinski, the founder of neurology, introduced the term anosognosia, which means "no knowledge of the disease," to describe an inability or refusal to recognize that one has a particular disease or disorder, thereby introducing the phenomenon of unawareness. Patients with lesions in the right hemisphere were capable of seeing and hearing, but denied that anything was wrong with them event when they had severe neurologic damage.
Karl Lashley
Lashley accepted localization of basic sensory and motor skills, but he also supported equipotential views with experiments on rats similar to those of Flourens on birds.
Mass Action
Lashley found that impairment in maze running in the rat was directly related of the amount of cortex removed. He stated that the specific area removed made little difference. From his experiments, Lashley formulates his famous principle of mass action: the extent of behavioral impairments is directly proportional to the mass of the removed tissue.
Lashley: multipotentiality of brain tissue
Lshley also emphasized the multipotentiality of brain tissue: Each part of the brain participates in more than onr function. Lashley believed that his results were highly compatible with a view that brain tissue is equipotential and can be involved in tasks other than those assigned by the localizationists.
Alternative Models
Unable to accept either the localization or equipotentiality models of brain function, psychologists and neurologists have searched for other alternative models.
Hughlings Jackson
Jackson created an alternative model brain function. Jackson devoted his research to the investigation of epileptic seizures and the stud of connections between limb movements and specific areas in the brain. Jackson observed that higher mental functions are not unitary abilities, but consist of simpler and more basic skills. He suggested that one does not have a speech center; rather, one has the ability to combine certain basic skills, such as hearing, discrimination of speech sounds, and fine-motor and kinesthetic control of the speech apparatus, to create more complex higher skills. Consequently, the loss of speech can be traced to the loss of any one of a number of basic abilities or functional systems. It can be related to, for example, the loss of motor control, the loss of adequate feedback from the mouth and tongue, a defect in the understanding and use of the basic parts of speech, or the inability to decide to speak.
Jason & localization
Jackson proposed that localizing damage that destroys speech and localizing speech are two different things.
Jackson's view of the brain
Jackson pointed toward a more holistic, nearly equipotential view of brain function, but Jackson also argued that each area within the nervous system had a specific function that contributed to the overall system. Thus, his views also had a localizationist flavor. In actuality, of course, Jackson's views were those of neither school but reflected an integration of significant empirical data.
Alexander Luria
Luria was responsible for the most profound changes in our approach to understanding the brain and the mind. Luria realized that a viable brain-behavior theory must not only explain data that fit both the localization and equipotentiality hypothesis but also must account for findings inconsistent with either theory.
Luria's 3 units
Luria conceived each area of the central nervous system as being involved in one of 3 basic functions, which Luria labeled units.
1. roughly defined as the brainstem and associated areas, regulates the arousal level of the brain and the maintenance of proper muscle tone. 2. including posterior areas of the cortex, plays a key role in the reception, integration, and analysis of sensory information from both the internal and external environments. 3. the frontal and prefrontal lobes, is involved in planning, executing, and verifying behavior.
Luria's functional systems
Luria formulated the concept of functional systems, which represent the pattern of interaction among the various areas of the brain necessary to complete a behavior.
Luria: pluripotentiality
As with the equipotentiality theory, Luria regards behavior as the result of interaction among many areas of the brain. As with the localization theory, Luria assigns a specific role to each area of the brain. The multifuncitonal role of the brain is called pluripotentiality; any given area of the brain can be involved in relatively few or many behaviors.