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Personal differences among people over which they have no control – means that we must take into account “the nature of the human observer”

Developed by Paul Broca; “posthumous extirpation” – examining brain structures after death to detect damaged areas assumed to be responsible for behavioral conditions that existed before the person died; a useful supplement to extirpation since few people want to volunteer to have parts of their brain removed while they are alive

Researcher attempts to determine the function of a given part of the brain by removing or destroying it and observing the resulting changes in the animal’s behavior; utilized by Flourens, providing the most effective criticism of cranioscopy/phrenology

The theory which became known as phrenology; founded by Franz Joseph Gall who proposed that the shape of a person’s scull revealed intellectual and emotional characteristics (lead Gall to be considered a quack and a fraud, no longer a respected scientist)

Having subjects adjust a variable stimulus until they perceive it to be equal to a constant standard stimulus. After a number of trials, the average difference between the standard stimulus and the variable stimulus represents the error of observation. a.k.a. method of adjustment

Least amount of change in a stimulus that results in a change in sensation; Fechner said that for each of the senses there is a certain relative increase in stimulus intensity that produces an observable change

Using a standard variable and comparison variables, the aim is to measure the stimulus difference required to produce correct judgments about whether the standard is different from the comparison

Two stimuli are presented and one is decreased until the subject reports that they detect a difference. After a number of trials, the differences are averaged to determine the differential threshold

Point at which two separate sources of stimulation can be distinguished

Use of weak electrical currents to explore the cerebral cortex and motor responses; promoted in 1870 by Gustav Fritsch and Eduard Hitzig

The scientific study of the relations between mental and material processes

The popularized version of Gall’s cranioscopy; based on idea that the shape of a person’s scull revealed intellectual and emotional characteristics; popularized by Johann Spurzheim, a student of Gall, and Georg Combe, but Orson and Lorenzo Fowler built it into a successful business

Smallest difference between weights that could be detected; psychology’s first quantitative law; Ernst Weber noted that discrimination was more accurate when subjects lifted the weights (could detect smaller differences – 1:40) compared to when the experimenter placed the weights in their hands (1:30 detection ratio)

The stimulus intensity at which subjects report that the sensation first occurs => the point of sensitivity at which no sensations can be detected and above which sensations can be experienced

Muller’s theory that the stimulation of a particular nerve always leads to a characteristic sensation because each sensory nerve has its own specific energy