Beginnings Of Psychology Research Articles

The distinction between long-term knowledge and short-term control processes is valid and useful.

The binary distinction De Neys questions has been put forward many times since the beginnings of psychology, in slightly different forms and under different names. It has proved enormously useful and has received detailed empirical support and careful modeling. At heart the distinction is that between knowledge in long-term memory and control processes in short-term memory.

Introspection as a Research Method in Experimental Psychology. Wilhelm Wundt and the Beginnings of Psychology as a Science

The meeting of the existential challenges, specific to every generation, and the positioning of precedent constructs, insufficient and limited in the transmission of information, is regarded as an important progress factor. In the second half of the XIX century, the existence and pragmatism of inclinations, trends and orientations in Philosophy, Metaphysics and Natural Science would have given a decisive contribution to the formation of the necessary conditions so that the intuitions and experimental research of Wilhelm Wundt conducted to remarkable progress in Psychology. The creation of the first laboratory of Experimental Psychology at the University of Lipsia, in 1879, highlighted the incontrovertible contribution of the introspection method, and, consequently, the history of Psychology registered the birth of Experimental Psychology as a Science.

Intense Beauty Requires Intense Pleasure.

At the beginning of psychology, Fechner (1876) claimed that beauty is immediate pleasure, and that an object’s pleasure determines its value. In our earlier work, we found that intense pleasure always results in intense beauty. Here, we focus on the inverse: Is intense pleasure necessary for intense beauty? If so, the inability to experience pleasure (anhedonia) should prevent the experience of intense beauty. We asked 757 online participants to rate how intensely they felt beauty from each image. We used 900 OASIS images along with their available valence (pleasure vs. displeasure) and arousal ratings. We then obtained self-reports of anhedonia (TEPS), mood, and depression (PHQ-9). Across images, beauty ratings were closely related to pleasure ratings (r = 0.75), yet unrelated to arousal ratings. Only images with an average pleasure rating above 4 (of a possible 7) often achieved (>10%) beauty averages exceeding the overall median beauty. For normally beautiful images (average rating > 4.5), the beauty ratings were correlated with anhedonia (r ∼−0.3) and mood (r ∼ 0.3), yet unrelated to depression. Comparing each participant’s average beauty rating to the overall median (5.0), none of the most anhedonic participants exceeded the median, whereas 50% of the remaining participants did. Thus, both general and anhedonic results support the claim that intense beauty requires intense pleasure. In addition, follow-up repeated measures showed that shared taste contributed 19% to beauty-rating variance, only one third as much as personal taste (58%). Addressing age-old questions, these results indicate that beauty is a kind of pleasure, and that beauty is more personal than universal, i.e., 1.7 times more correlated with individual than with shared taste.

The Place of Development in the History of Psychology and Cognitive Science.

In this article, I analyze how the relationship of developmental psychology with general psychology and cognitive science has unfolded. This historical analysis will provide a background for a critical examination of the present state of the art. I shall argue that the study of human mind is inherently connected with the study of its development. From the beginning of psychology as a discipline, general psychology and developmental psychology have followed parallel and relatively separated paths. This separation between adult and child studies has also persisted with the emergence of cognitive science. The reason is due essentially to methodological problems that have involved not only research methods but also the very object of inquiry. At present, things have evolved in many ways. Psychology and cognitive science have enlarged their scope to include change process and the interaction between mind and environment. On the other hand, the possibility of using experimental methods to study infancy has allowed us to realize the complexity of young humans. These facts have paved the way for new possibilities of convergence, which are eliciting interesting results, despite a number of ongoing problems related to methods.

Psycho-Informatics: Big Data shaping modern psychometrics

For the first time in history, it is possible to study human behavior on great scale and in fine detail simultaneously. Online services and ubiquitous computational devices, such as smartphones and modern cars, record our everyday activity. The resulting Big Data offers unprecedented opportunities for tracking and analyzing behavior. This paper hypothesizes the applicability and impact of Big Data technologies in the context of psychometrics both for research and clinical applications. It first outlines the state of the art, including the severe shortcomings with respect to quality and quantity of the resulting data. It then presents a technological vision, comprised of (i) numerous data sources such as mobile devices and sensors, (ii) a central data store, and (iii) an analytical platform, employing techniques from data mining and machine learning. To further illustrate the dramatic benefits of the proposed methodologies, the paper then outlines two current projects, logging and analyzing smartphone usage. One such study attempts to thereby quantify severity of major depression dynamically; the other investigates (mobile) Internet Addiction. Finally, the paper addresses some of the ethical issues inherent to Big Data technologies. In summary, the proposed approach is about to induce the single biggest methodological shift since the beginning of psychology or psychiatry. The resulting range of applications will dramatically shape the daily routines of researches and medical practitioners alike. Indeed, transferring techniques from computer science to psychiatry and psychology is about to establish Psycho-Informatics, an entire research direction of its own.

French Ideas in the beginnings of Psychology in Argentina

First, the paper analyzes the intellectual conditions that made possible the emergence of psychological studies in Argentina around 1900 and the Argentine's reception of French thought. It will be point out that although laboratories of Experimental Psychology were established in the country since 1899, such laboratories were quite different to laboratories in Germany. First, because laboratories were mainly used for educational purposes, not to produce new psychological knowledge. Second, because in Argentina the term "Experimental Psychology" was related with the concept of "Experimental Medicine" introduced by Claude Bernard in France. In such context, Experimental Psychology in Argentina meant Clinical Psychology oriented by the perspective of French psychopathology, especially by the works of Ribot, Grasset and Charcot.

Cognitive development: changing views of cognitive change.

The aim of research in cognitive development is to understand the origins of human knowledge and to provide an account of cognitive change. Theorizing regarding these issues is rooted in the nativist-empiricist debate. This article traces changing views in that debate, from the beginnings of psychology, through the cognitive revolution, Piaget, and alternatives to Piaget, including nativism, Vygotskyan theory, and information-processing work. The last section presents current theorizing and outlines various modern versions of nativism, constructivism, and empiricism. WIREs Cogn Sci 2013, 4:479-491. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1245 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article.

Development of interpersonal trust among children and adolescents

Development of interpersonal trust among children and adolescentsThe main purpose of the present article is to introduce a topic related to the development of interpersonal trust among children and adolescents. Although this subject, since the beginnings of psychology considered as an academic discipline, has been regarded as an essential component of human functioning, there are still very few theoretical and empirical studies that approach the issue from a developmental point of view. In this paper the three-dimensional conceptualization of interpersonal trust is provided. Furthermore, the article highlights the past and current theoretical and empirical research on the development of interpersonal trust in infants, preschool and school-age children. Finally, some challenges are presented in the field of interpersonal trust studies.

Los psicólogos en la Argentina

En la Republica Argentina, desde la creacion de la carrera en el pais en 1957 en Rosario hasta junio de 2005, han egresado 55853 psicologos universitarios. Estos se formaron en 34 Universidades (7 Universidades estatales y 27 universidades privadas). Se han detectado 46777 psicologos en actividad. La diferencia entre egresados y activos es de 9076. Estos profesionales son aquellos que no ejercen la profesion, los que no se han matriculado en colegios o asociaciones, los que han emigrado o se han jubilado. Los estudiantes universitarios de psicologia que mantienen su regularidad en los estudios son 56387. En el 2005 iniciaron sus estudios de psicologia 12268 estudiantes. Tomando la cantidad total de psicologos recibidos en relacion con la poblacion segun el Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas y Censos (2001) existen 154 psicologos por cada 100000 habitantes o 649 habitantes por psicologo.

Internationalism in psychology: We need it now more than ever.

A concern with international cooperation in psychology has been present since the beginnings of psychology as a science. In this article, the author traces the development of international cooperation from the late 19th century to the present day to document the interesting ways in which the forms of collaboration have always been related to the large social and political contexts of which they are a part. This historical material is followed by an autobiographical account of the author's own involvement in cooperative international research to illustrate how such activity can play out. A few selected collaborative enterprises are then described to emphasize the point that psychology stands to benefit enormously from continued international cooperation, especially in times of international conflict such as that being experienced at the present time. ((c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

Increased feelings with increased body signals

Since the beginning of psychology as a scientific endeavour, the question of whether the body plays a role in how a person experiences emotion has been the centre of emotion research. Patients with structural gastrointestinal disorders, such as Crohn's disease, provide an intriguing opportunity to study the influence of body signals on emotions and feelings. In the present study, emotionally salient films were presented to participants with Crohn's disease in either the active state (Crohn's-active, CA) or silent state (Crohn's-silent, CS), and to normal comparison (NC) participants. We hypothesized that CA participants would have increased feelings, compared with CS and NC participants, when viewing emotional films designed to elicit happiness, disgust, sadness and fear. Gastric myoelectrical activity (electrogastrogram, or EGG) was measured during the films, and after each film was presented, participants rated emotion intensity (arousal) and pleasantness (valence). All groups labelled the emotions similarly. In support of the hypothesis, CA participants showed an increase in subjective arousal for negative emotions compared with CS and NC participants. The CA participants also showed increased EGG during emotional film viewing, as well as a strong positive correlation of EGG with arousal ratings. Together, these findings can be taken as evidence that aberrant feedback from the gastrointestinal system up-regulates the intensity of feelings of negative emotions.

The phenomenon of quantum change.

Quantum change-the subject of this issue of In Session-refers to sudden, dramatic, and enduring transformations that affect a broad range of personal emotion, cognition, and behavior. This phenomenon has been described since the beginnings of psychology, most notably by William James in Varieties of Religious Experience. Quantum changes occur both within and (mostly) outside the context of psychotherapy and show certain common features in both process and content. This introduction provides an overview of the phenomenon of quantum change, describing its essential features, two qualitative subtypes, antecedents, course, and the nature of the enduring changes that ensue.

The Contributions of Psychology to Education

psychology does not contain merely one theory or set of coherent facts that can be applied to education; there are a number of theories and a number of opposing 'facts'. In order to cope with these kinds of problems the educationist must examine the 'facts' and theories he has acquired from psychology as they operate in the course of the educative process in the classroom. This implies a whole new set of theories and principles over and above purely psychological ones. Has this two-way process operated in the application of psychological research, and just how much has psychology contributed to the study of education since its inception as a science less than a century and a half ago? Herbart (1776-I841) probably best marks the beginning of psychology's contribution to education, and his concepts recur continually in many of the psychologies discussed in this paper. As his work has been well examined by educationalists, suffice to say here that he described the mind as an apperceptive mass, built out of experience and activity with physical stimuli assimilated into ideas. Set in the context of formal Victorian education the activity aspect of his theory was somewhat revolutionary and began to have some effect on school curricula towards the end of the nineteenth century, with the result that practical activities, gardening, singing, painting, woodwork and such-like began to appear in what had been a predominantly bookish curricula. At the same time Herbart's doctrine of interest and theory of apperception were incorporated into formal steps for educational instruction: Preparation, Presentation, Association, Generalization and Application, which became the basis for the lesson procedure in a large number of twentieth century schools. Such schools as paid attention to Herbartian doctrines tended towards a holistic view of the child, and introduced curricula which co-ordinated and correlated what had previously been taught as rigidly distinct subjects. To Herbart the mind was the central problem of psychology. It was also to most psychologists who followed him, up to, and including, John Dewey (1859-1952), whose contributions have been as well examined by educators as Herbart's. He believed that out of the concrete acts of the child, organized and ordered towards an end, arises the orderliness of thought'. His Laboratory School put this psychological theory into practice and introduced workshops, laboratory materials and tools with which the child could create, construct, and actively enquire. Dewey also adapted courses of study to stages of development which crudely anticipated Piaget's cognitive stage theory and remain common practice in sequential presentation of history and science in schoolrooms to this day. Dewey and his contemporaries may be described as the early cognitive psychologists. As the mind then appeared to most, in the pre-behaviourist days, as the most likely centre where learning took place, the orientation appeared promising for the application of psychology to education.