PSYC-115 FA5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Property Dualism, Reductionism, Andreas Vesalius
12 Jun 2018
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April 6, 2018
Lecture 19: Perspectives: Study of Behavior
●Obesity
○Leptin- makes you realize satiety; suppresses food intake
○Trends in obesity
■Over the past 30 years, there have been dramatic changes in the incidence of
overweight and obesity in the population
■Theses changes in the ….
■Obesity rate in the US is increasing too rapidly for it to be genetic
■Both genes and environment jointly contribute to all behavior
■All behavior has a biological base
○Reductionism-
ON EXAM
■This philosophical perspective of reducing some phenomenon to a lower level of
analysis is referred to as reductionism:
●Mind-behavior-brain-brain units-nerve cells-nerve cell parts-
macromolecules-simple molecules-atoms-subatomic particles
■Neuro Reductionism
●Reductionism (mind --> biology)
●Tenets
○Positions
■Substance dualism
●A localizable physical component (for our purposes, the brain)
●A non-localizable non physical component (for our purposes, the mind)
■Property Dualism
●A localizable physical component (brain)
●A non-localizable nonphysical component (mind) that emerges from the
brain but that is irreducible
■**the mind is a property of the brain
●Focus on biology of behavior has one major assumption, i.e., that we can analyze behavior (writ
large) at a biological level
○This position is based on the belief that behavior
●Ventricles
○Heart
○Brain
○Ventricles
■Galen (130-200): Natural, vital and animal spirits; brain pumps animal spirits
through ventricles; trephining
■Vesalius (1515-1564): challenge; flesh and animals
■Gassendi (1592-1655): sensitive (material) and rational (immaterial) souls
■Descartes (1596-1650): animal and rational souls
■Thomas Willis (1621-1675): Cortex
●Empirical Evidence?
○Correlational- examine relationships between co-occurring events
■Phrenology (feeling bumps on head)
●In this position, specific behavioral and personality characteristics were
associated with protrusions from the skull (skull shape)
●It was concluded that the underlying brain must be larger in these areas
and that these areas must be responsible for the specific characteristics
of the individual
●Given this, it was predicted that individuals with specific protrusions
would display specific personality traits
●Franz Josef Gall (175801828)- based on observations and anecdotal
evidence. Argued that there were 27 “faculties” (19 in animals)
●Localized areas of the brain are responsible for certain characteristics
●Johann Spurzheim (1776-1832)- extended number of faculties to 35
●George Combe (1788-1858)- Constitution of Man populatized field
●“Psychograph”
●Challenges:
○Based on limited data
○Database subjective
○Contrary data often dismissed
○Not supported by cranioscopy
○Scientifically challenged (Pierre Flourens)
○Split the “soul”
○Challenged free will and implied determinism
●Although discredited as a scientific explanation of brain and behavior, it
did set the stage for the belief that the brain mediated a number of
human faculties
●What remained was documenting ….
●Localization of Function- your brain is made up of multiple
sections, each of which mediates specific functions
■Natural damage
●This technique depended upon the association or correlation of behavioral
and personality changes with specific brain pathology
●In so doing, it supported a role of localized brain areas mediating specific
behavioral effects
●Parkinson’s disease
○James Parkinson (1817)- Essay on Shaking Palsy
■Identified specific motor pathology, e.g., resting tremors,
bradykinesia, pinroll rigidity
■Named Parkinson’s Disease in 1861 by Jean-Marin
Charcot
○Brain mediation characterized
■Basal Ganglia (mediates motor activity) (t. Meynert, 1871)
●Corpus striatum (S.A.Wilson, 1912)
○Caudate nucleus
○Globus pallidus
○Putamen
●Substantia Nigra (C.Tretiakoff, 1919)
●Motor aphasia (the absence of language) (Broca)
○Jean Baptiste Bouillaud (1796-1881)
○Simona Ernest Aubertin (1825-1865) bouillaud’s son-in-law
examined a patient that had attempted suicide. Noted effects of
touch on brain
○Pierre Paul Broca (1824-1880): attended demonstration by
Aubertin (in 1861) and invited him to view one of his own patients
(Tan [the only word he could say; he could understand everything
but couldn’t speak])
■Tan died six days after visit
■Broca presented results of “tan’s” autopsy the next day at
the Societe d’Anthropologie
■Left anterior ….
■Broca’s aphasia
●Speech output is severely reduced, limited mainly
to short utterances of a few words
●Vocab access is limited
●Lack of syntax and diminished morphology
●Formation of sounds is often laborious and
clumsy
●May understand speech relatively well and be
able to read, but be limited in writing
●Terminology- Broca’s aphasia; expressive
aphasia, non-fluent aphasia; motor aphasia
○right side
○
●Sensory aphasia
Document Summary
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