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That about sums it up for the people of the brain, now we will move on to the Areas of Study. Centuries after centuries of great thinkers and physician have tried to unlock the secret behind the brain. Its workings have never been fully understood by them at all . Only now in the late 20th century, we have gone much closer in our quest to reveal what's behind the phantom's mask. Numerous theories of how the mind works have arisen from the drive to know ourselves. In this section we shall highlight the evolution of our insight and discoveries over the two centuries.
Various historical theories, or approaches to studying the mind are highlighted in this section. These are listed, and briefly explained below.
Theories:
The pseudoScience of phrenology
The father of phrenology was a German physician Franz Gall who lived in the 19th century. He believed that the emotion and temperament of a person can be told by simply feeling the bumps on a person's head. A tool used by phrenologist is a plastic model of a head with words written on it . It is a map of the qualities which correspond to the bumps on the patient's head. This theory has long been discredited.
The CognitivE Approach
The cognitive approach originated during the 1950s and 60s when some psychologists were inspired by computers to look at the way people think or process information. Using this method, a psychologist might ask, for instance, if people perceive things the same way computers are programmed to. However, it is impossible to prove fully or disprove completely the cognitive psychologist's theories.
The Biological Approach
The biological approach is one of the most fruitful ways of studying the mind. Much has been learned by examining the anatomy and chemical nature of the brain, rather than it's mental process or behavior. Neuroscientists (people who study the brain) have revealed how certain chemicals work in the brain to affect our behavior and that specific skills are controlled by specific parts of the brain.
Behaviorism
Behaviorism was the leading approach to understanding the human mind from about 1920 to mid-1950s , and it still has many supporters. It concentrates entirely on how people (and animals) behave and tries to analyze all behavior by looking at how one perceives things and then responds. Behaviorism was made famous by the Russion Psychologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), who carried out an experiment to show how dogs can be 'conditioned' to respond to a particular stimulus, such as the ringing of a bell, which they associate with food..
B.F. Skinner (1904-90), one of its most extreme proponents, argued that all human behavior could be explained by stimulus-response relationships. He wrote novel which transported his ideas in a story where a few powerful people could keep everyone happy by creating a world in which they were stimulated in the right way.
The Psychoanalytic Approach
The psychoanalytic approach was lead by Sigmund Freud (1853-1939). His theory puts forth that people's psychological history explains to a large extent both the make-up of their character and their current behavior. Freud suggests that we have "conscious" thoughts of which we are aware and "unconscious" thoughts of which we are normally unaware, but which influences our daily living tremendously. He proposed the role of childhood experiences, particularly during the first five years of life and the importance of sexuality in forming the adult personality.
Gestalt
Gestalt psychology disagreed with beviorism for it breaks down everything into units of stimulus and response. Gestalt psychology looked at the human brain in a holistic manner, understanding that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. They were concerned with understanding mental experience and development, and concentrated on people's awareness of the world and their surroundings.
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