PS390 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Paul Broca, Pseudoscience, Gesture Recognition
Document Summary
German-french scholar who believed the brain is the organ of all mental processes, even sentiments and tendencies, and moral and intellectual capacities are innate and unmodifiable. Tried to establish how links he perceived b/w human skulls and locations of brain functions were related to and explained human nature, 27 mental faculties, and behaviour. Speculated that larger, better-developed cortices are associated w more intelligent behaviour and charted the skull to map individual character. Argued a person w excellent memory has bulging eyes bc of enlarged brain site for memory. Proposed the strength of specific mental faculties and functions is related causally to physical size of specific areas and structures of brain and skull (phrenology a pseudoscience) By maintaining that the brain is the seat of mental activity, gall made psychology the province of scientists not philosophers and his work led to experimental study of the brain.
