PSYC 100 Study Guide - Sound Energy, Primary Motor Cortex, Forgetting Curve

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Ingrid Johnsrude

Document Summary

Behaviour: any action that can be observed, recorded, and measured. Rationalism: the pursuit of the truth though logic and reason: ancient greek philosophers: socrates, plato, aristotle. Physiologist: study the function of living systems. Empiricism: the gaining of knowledge through observable facts and experiences. Founding fathers of psychology: wilhelm wundt and william james. Wundt: smaller elements that made up the human experience. James: purposes associated with the various human traits. Structuralist psychologists: (wundt, von helmholtz, fechner) break complex phenomena down to their smallest components and then study these components, assuming that if they understand all the parts, they will understand the whole. introspection. Functionalism: examine behaviours, traits, and perceptions by asking, what are they for? this focus on purpose was influenced by charles darwin. Natural selection: characteristics vary among individual members of a species-> characteristics are passed from parents to offspring -> adaptive characteristics that cause greater reproductive or survival success become more common over generations.