PSYO 1011 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Cartesian Theater

• School: Dalhousie University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYO 1011
• Professor: Leanne Stevens,Shelley Adamo,Kevin Duffy,Jennifer Stamp

Document Summary

4 goals: describe behaviour, causes of behaviour, predict behaviour, influence people. Left suicide note. he knew there was something not right about him, brain was examined after death, was found to have a brain tumor that was pushing on the part which regulated emotions. Dualism: idea is that your mind and body are separate. Little you believed to be in ones mind, one"s essence controls your actions. Roman physician to the gladiators, nerves and brain connected, nervous system controlled by animal spirits" (messengers of the soul), believed nerves were channels . Problems with this theory: reflexes occur in spiritless" animals, aldini, used electrical stimulation to induce reflexes in the heads of recently executed criminals. Function of nerves could be explained without recourse to spirits", psychologicals explanations more plausible. Hobbes argued that there is no soul, only energy and matter. 19th century neurologists found that brain damage induced specific behavioural deficits.