A Little History

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A Little History

• Psychology 1106

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A little History

• Before the beginning of science (mid 1600s)
  psychology was clearly in the domain of the
  philosophers
• Indeed, all sciences were
• Physics was the first to leave the nest
• Then chemistry
• Biology
• Finally, us

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Aristotle

• Believed that the heart was the seat of behaviour
• He noted the importance of the brain (but it was
  for cooling blood he figured)

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British Empiricists

• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
• Contents of mind rest on experience
• John Locke (1632-1704)
• white paper or tabula rasa

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Rene Descartes

• Descartes said that we were machines with a soul
• The notion was that the mind and the body were
  separate
• Animals have no soul

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And yadda yadda yadda.

• By the 19th century people were talking about
  psychology
• Still the philosophers held sway
• Last half of the 19th century changed this
• The zeitgeist of the time changed

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What the hell does zeitgeist mean?

• I dont speak freaky deaky Dutch Mr. Goldmember
• The spirit of history
• The enlightenment of the 18th century was
  affecting the common person
• Science and technology could explain everything

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Gesundheit

• Even the origins of humanity could be explained
  without appealing to religion!
• Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species
• So like you could figure out anything with
  science!!

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Wilhelm Wundt

• 1879 Leipzig
• Established his lab at the University of Leipzig
• Studied psychophysics
• Many of those methods are still used today

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William James

• Published his Principles of Psychology in 1890
• Lots of introspection
• Looking into yourself
• Got lots of stuff right

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John B. Watson and Behaviourism

• Became president of the APA in 1915
• A reaction against introspection
• For Watson and his ilk, introspection was a very
  bad thing
• Turning psychology back into philosophy

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Behaviourism

• BF Skinner and Ivan Pavlov
• Consciousness is an epiphenomenon
• Only concerned with the observable
• Skinner really became the spokesman for this
  view, Pavlov was not a behaviourist
• Skinner had a huge hold on psychological thinking
  in North America

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Meanwhile in Europe.

• Freud
• Boooooooo
• Dirty old man crack head from Vienna
• Psychoanalysis
• It is all about sex,
• With your mother.

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Those wacky Europeans, they are so, European

• Piaget
• Child development
• Lorenz
• Imprinting
• Kohler
• Insight learning
• Gestalt psychology
• Clearly different from Behaviourism

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Cognitive Revolution

• This stuff, and a lot of interesting data
  (especially HM) lead to the idea that we should
  be more concerned about thinking
• Brenda Milner
• She is the one on the left
• The cognitive revolution hit every part of
  psychology

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More recent developments

• Brain imaging
• PET fMRI
• Watch people think!
• Computers
• Modeling and AI
• Now we are splitting up into cognitive science,
  neuroscience and AI
• Many old ideas have been rediscovered
• Species differences
• Ideas about memory
• Going through stages

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In Canada

• Psychology has always been strong in Canada
• First lab in Canada was in 1890 at U of T
• James Mark Baldwin
• Research in Canada is funded by NSERC, SSHRC and
  CIHR

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Many big names are from Canada

• Bandura
• Tulving
• Hebb
• Milner
• Baldwin
• Craik
• Lockhart
• Shettleworth

• Roberts
• MacLoed
• Paivio
• Pylishyn
• Kolb
• Wishaw
• Honig
• Staddon

The most cited psychology Department in the WORLD
is U of T