Narrative Summary of A Laboratory Course in Physiological Psychology

Overview:

This text is a lab manual for a course in physiological psychology. It was written by Edmund C. Sanford in 1891-1892 and published in the American Journal of Psychology. It provides a series of experiments designed to introduce students to the key concepts and methods of physiological psychology. The text focuses on the sensory systems, including touch, temperature, pressure, static and kinesthetic senses, taste, smell, hearing, and vision. Each experiment is described in detail, including the necessary apparatus, the procedure, and the expected results.

Main Parts:

The Dermal Senses: This section focuses on the senses of touch, temperature, and pressure. It includes experiments on the sense of locality, discriminative sensibility, pressure points, and minimal pressure.
Static and Kinesthetic Senses: This section explores the senses that provide information about the position and motion of the body. It includes experiments on recognizing the position of the body as a whole, sensation of rotation, sensation of progressive motion, muscle sense, innervation sense, joint sense, and sensations of resistance.
Taste and Smell: This section examines the senses of taste and smell. It includes experiments on the distribution of taste organs, minimal taste, discriminative sensibility for taste, minimal odors, discriminative sensibility for odors, fatigue of smell, and compensation of odors.
Hearing: This section explores the sense of hearing. It includes experiments on minimal sounds, auditory fatigue, inertia of the auditory apparatus, noise, silence, highest and lowest tones, recognition of absolute pitch, just observable difference in pitch, number of vibrations necessary to produce a sensation of pitch, apparent pitch of tones, recognition of musical intervals, pitch distance, the effect of a given tone in a melody, tones that vary irregularly, beats, difference tones, blending of tones, analysis of groups of simultaneous tones, partial tones, timbre, simultaneous tones interfering with one another, consonant and dissonant intervals and chords, major and minor chords, cadences, binaural audition, and the location of sounds.
Vision: This section focuses on the sense of vision. It includes experiments on the retinal image, accommodation, chromatic aberration, entoptic phenomena, retinal blood vessels, the blind spot, the yellow spot, visual cones in the fovea, acuteness of vision, mechanical stimulation of the retina, idio-retinal light, electrical stimulation of the visual apparatus, after-images, the seat of the after-image, after-images of motion, irradiation, reflex movement of the eye, associated movements of the eyes, motions of the eyes when the lines of sight are parallel, convergent movements of the eyes, involuntary movements of the eyes, seeing of light and color, color-blindness, vision with the peripheral portions of the retina, changes in color tone and intensity, size of the colored field, phenomena of rotating disks, color-mixing, complementary colors, other methods of mixing colored lights, contrast, simultaneous contrast, influence of judgment in visual perception, an effect opposite of contrast, binocular phenomena of light and color, binocular lustre, and binocular color-mixing.

View on Life: The text presents a view of the world that is strongly influenced by the scientific method. It emphasizes the importance of objective observation and experimentation in understanding the workings of the mind and body. The text also emphasizes the importance of introspection, but only when it is conducted under carefully controlled experimental conditions.

Scenarios: The text includes descriptions of a variety of scenarios and situations that can be used to study the sensory systems. For example, the text describes how to use a tilting board to study the sense of balance, a color-mixer to study color perception, and a tuning fork to study the sense of hearing.

Challenges: The text discusses the challenges of conducting experiments in physiological psychology. For example, the text mentions the difficulty of controlling for extraneous variables, the need for precise measurements, and the importance of avoiding observer bias.

Conflict: The text highlights the conflict between different theories of perception, such as the Young-Helmholtz theory and Hering’s theory of color vision. It also discusses the conflict between different explanations of phenomena, such as the psychological explanation and physiological explanation of simultaneous contrast.

Plot: The text does not have a traditional plot, but it does present a series of experiments that build upon one another, with each experiment introducing new concepts and methods.

Point of View: The text is written from the point of view of a teacher or researcher in physiological psychology. It is written in a clear and concise style, with the focus on providing students with the information they need to conduct experiments and understand the results.

How It’s Written: The text is written in a formal and academic tone. It uses precise language and technical terms. The author communicates information clearly and concisely. An example of this writing style is the description of the apparatus for Ex. 99: “Chlorofrom the rabbit, remove the eyes and mount them in clay for readier handling. Make a thick ring of clay with an internal diameter a little greater than that of the comes of the rabbit’s eye, place the eye comes downward in the ring and lay a similar ring upon it to keep it in place. It can now be handled easily and turned in any direction.”

Tone: The tone of the text is neutral and objective. The author presents information in a matter-of-fact way, without expressing personal opinions or beliefs.

Lessons: The text teaches students about the workings of the sensory systems and how to conduct experiments to study them. It also teaches students about the importance of objective observation and experimentation in understanding the world around us.

Characters: The text does not have main characters. It focuses on the scientific concepts and methods used to study the sensory systems.

Themes:

Importance of the scientific method: The text emphasizes the importance of objective observation and experimentation in understanding the world around us.
Mind-body connection: The text explores the connection between the mind and the body through the study of the sensory systems.
Complexity of perception: The text demonstrates the complexity of perception by highlighting the many factors that influence how we experience the world, including sensory processes, cognitive processes, and cultural influences.

Principles:

Sensory processes are fundamental to experience: The text emphasizes the role of sensory processes in shaping our perception of the world.
Perception is an active process: The text demonstrates how perception is influenced by a variety of factors, including attention, expectations, and past experience.
The scientific method is a powerful tool for understanding perception: The text demonstrates the value of the scientific method in uncovering the mechanisms of perception.

Intentions:

The author’s intention is to provide students with a clear and concise introduction to the methods and concepts of physiological psychology.
The reader’s intention is to learn about the sensory systems and how to conduct experiments to study them.

Unique Vocabulary:

Æsthesiometer: An instrument used to measure discriminative sensibility for touch.
Campimeter: An instrument used to map the visual field.
Chromatic aberration: A defect in the eye that causes different colored rays of light to be focused at different points on the retina.
Difference tones: Tones that are perceived when two tones are sounded simultaneously, with the pitch of the difference tone being the difference between the frequencies of the two original tones.
Entoptic phenomena: Visual phenomena that are caused by structures within the eye, such as the muscae volitantes.
Fovea: A small pit in the center of the macula lutea, which is responsible for our sharpest vision.
Macula lutea: A small area on the retina, located near the center, which is responsible for our sharpest vision.
Phosphenes: Visual sensations that are produced by mechanical stimulation of the retina.
Purkinje phenomenon: The observation that the relative brightness of different colors changes with the level of illumination.
Talbot-Plateau law: A law that states that the perceived brightness of a flickering light source is equal to the average brightness of the light source over time.

Anecdotes: The text includes a number of anecdotes that illustrate the concepts and methods being discussed. For example, the text describes how to use a pink-eyed rabbit to demonstrate the retinal image and how to use a tilting board to study the sense of balance.

Ideas:

The text puts forth the idea that perception is a complex process that involves multiple sensory systems, cognitive processes, and cultural influences.
The text also puts forth the idea that the scientific method is a powerful tool for understanding perception.

Facts and Findings:

The Dermal Senses: The text presents the fact that the skin is sensitive to touch, temperature, and pressure. It also presents the finding that discriminative sensibility for touch varies across different parts of the body.
Static and Kinesthetic Senses: The text presents the fact that we have senses that provide us with information about the position and motion of our bodies. It also presents the finding that our sense of balance is influenced by the position of our head.
Taste and Smell: The text presents the fact that taste and smell are chemical senses. It also presents the finding that our sense of smell is very sensitive and can be easily fatigued.
Hearing: The text presents the fact that sound is a form of vibration. It also presents the finding that we can perceive a wide range of sounds, from very low to very high frequencies.
Vision: The text presents the fact that light is a form of electromagnetic radiation. It also presents the finding that our eyes are complex optical instruments that allow us to see the world around us.

Statistics: The text cites a number of statistics, including the following:

The ratio between the difference in weight that can be discriminated from a standard weight and the standard weight (Ex. 39a).
The proportions of tastable substances and water used in the experiments on taste (Ex. 49).
The length of red rubber odor tube required for a just observable odor at 18°C (Ex. 54).
The distances at which the tick of a watch can be heard by normal ears (Ex. 58).
The ratio of black to white in the faintest ring that can be seen on a rotating disk (Ex. 130).
The results of Helmholtz’s and Aubert’s measurements of the just observable differences of intensity for different colors (Ex. 131).

Points of View: The text is written from the point of view of a teacher or researcher in physiological psychology. The author’s perspective is strongly influenced by the scientific method.

Perspective: The text presents a scientific perspective on perception, emphasizing the importance of objective observation and experimentation. It also presents a physiological perspective on perception, focusing on the sensory systems that underlie our experience of the world.

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