PSYC214 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Heritability, Tabula Rasa, Reflexology
Document Summary
Background and rationale for the study of learning and behaviour. An enduring change in the mechanisms of behaviour involving specific stimuli and/or response. Recognised people do things automatically in response to external stimulus. Does not have to be triggered by external stimuli. Persons conscious intent to act in that particular way. Assumed that only one set of nerves was involved. Same nerves transmitted information from the sense organs to the brain and from the brain to the muscles the brain and from the brain to the muscles. Nonhuman animals lacked free will and incapable of voluntary, conscious action. Historical developments in the study of the mind. Philosophical approach that assumes we are born with innate ideas about certain things. Mind started as a clean slate (tabula rasa) Mind gradually filled with ideas about information that the person encountered various sense experiences. Human behaviour was guided in a predictable manner by fixed principle.
