PSYCH 112 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Spinal Cord, Peripheral Nervous System, Central Nervous System
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Chapter 2 Text Notes
Stimulus- an event- usually a change in an organism’s environment- that triggers a response
Response- the action- usually of an organism’s appendages- triggered by a stimulus
- Internal response system allows an organism to be much more flexible and much less
predictable than if it were solely governed by cause-and-effect stimuli
oResponse system does not replace effects, but uses effects to illicit responses
Behavior- an organism’s action counts as behavior if and only if it is elicited by an event that
triggers the organism’s internal response system
Agency- agents have energetic independence, anticipation, and teleology
- Define the kinds of entities that posses “mind”
Energetic independence- the energy released in a response must be independent of the
energy received in the stimulus that triggers the response
oYou decide to expend lots of energy running away when someone holds up a gun,
despite the energy used from seeing the gun being very minimal
oShows that the response system is a signaling system rather than an energy-
delivery system
oThe electrical impulse carries information rather than power
Anticipation- the ability to respond to events before they occur
Teleology- “goal directedness”
oArises from the adaptive nature of the response system
Proven by our automatic reflexes, which are designed to improve our
situation
•Conscious actions are even more so teleological
oCan be observed by an organism that persists in a goal, trying multiple methods
Afferent Nerves- carry signals into the brain and spine