Name: sarah lander

Semester: 6th SEMESTER

Voluntary Behaviour and cerebral localization

Voluntary Behavior:
Bain's most popular development in associationist psychology is his explanation of voluntary
behavior, which he treats as a form of learned behavior based on association. Unlike involuntary
reflexive behavior, voluntary behavior is often generated independently of external sensory receptor
stimulation.
Behavior can be generated independently of sensory stimulation, according to Bain, because stored
neural energy within the organism can be spontaneously released to motor nerves without prior
stimulation (where there is no external stimulus as a cause).
According to Bain, such spontaneously generated behavior is transformed into directed or purposeful
voluntary behavior when it is associated with the experience of pleasure and pain, as in the case of
newborn lambs, which progressively coordinate initially spontaneous movements until they develop
into deliberate movements towards their mother.
This explanation of behavioral learning, according to which behaviors followed by success,
satisfaction, or pleasure tend to be repeated, became known as the Spencer-Bain principle (Boakes,
1984). Earlier versions of Bain's account of voluntary behavior can be found in Hartley, Erasmus
Darwin, and the German physiologist Johannes Müller (1801-1858), from whom Bain probably
derived his explanation (Müller is quoted extensively in Bain's discussion of voluntary behavior).
Both Müller and Bain emphasized that the associative processes that transform spontaneous activity
into voluntary behavior are generally unconscious, as they operate in low-level animals and neonates
as well as adult humans.
The distinction between reflexive and voluntary behaviour also anticipated the later distinction
between responsive (stimulus-determined) and operant (consequence-determined) forms of
conditioning, and Bain recognized examples of both. He cites a number of stimulus-determined
associative reflexes that Pavlov later characterized as conditioned reflexes:
For example, the mere idea of nausea can excite reality even to the point of vomiting. The sight of
someone about to pass a sharp instrument over glass evokes the well-known sensation in the teeth.
The sight of food makes saliva start flowing.
Cerebral Localization
The 19th century saw major advances in neuroanatomy, especially during the 50-year period between
Franz Joseph Gall's On the Functions of the Brain (Gall & Spurzheim, 1822-1825/1835) and David
Ferrier's The Functions of the Brain (1876). This period also saw a marked shift in emphasis from
correlational experimental studies to controlled neurophysiological functions, a pattern that was later
repeated in the development of comparative psychology and scientific psychology in general.
Despite advances in neurophysiological areas of psychological function, the 19th century did not
represent a progressive triumph of materialism and reductive physiological explanations of human
and animal psychology and behavior. Instead, many pioneers of neurophysiological localization
championed a form of substance dualism or maintained a neutral parallelism, which allowed them to
avoid the familiar charges of materialism, atheism, and fatalism. At least at the beginning of this
century, even those who abandoned substance dualism maintained a form of neurophysiological
dualism, which preserved the rational autonomy of the human intellect and would have been
championed by traditional substance dualists such as Descartes. Many early theorists argued that the
cognitive functions of the cerebral cortex were categorically distinct from the sensory-motor functions
of the lower brain and spinal cord.
In the early 19th century, British physiologist Marshall Hall (1790-1857) established that there were
many connections between sensory and motor nerves in the spinal cord and introduced the idea of the
reflex arc: a system consisting of sensory nerves, an interconnected network of nerves in the spinal
cord, and motor nerves (Boakes, 1984). Hall distinguished between the "excitatory-motor" system,
which is housed in the lower brain and spinal cord (the "true spinal" system), and the "volitional-
sensing" system, which is housed in the cerebral cortex. According to Hall, the reflexive excitatory-
motor system is responsible for automatic, instinctive, and emotional behavior, while the volitional-
sensory system is responsible for rational, learned, and purposeful behavior.

Franz Joseph Gall: Phrenology

Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828), a Viennese physician and anatomist, developed what became known
as phrenology, the doctrine that the rate of development of psychological abilities is a function of the
size of the area of the brain in which they are localized, which can be determined by measuring the
contours of the skull, or cranioscopy. Gall attempts to map brain function by establishing correlations
between behavioral manifestations of psychological abilities and the bulges and curves of the skull,
which are thought to be due to the development or underdevelopment of the associated "separate
organs" of the brain. According to Gall, a developed faculty of desire, for example, is reflected in the
bulge just above and in front of the left ear; an underdeveloped faculty of curiosity is characterized by
an indentation in the same place. Human behavior can be explained and predicted with reference to
the level of development of the contours, or "bumps", on the skull.
Gall's theory was purportedly inspired by his childhood observation that classmates who excelled in
rote memory had "big bulging eyes" and his belief that such a correlation was not accidental (Young,
1990). His medical training led him to conclude that "differences in head shape are due to differences
in brain shape" (Gall & Spurzheim, 1822-1825/1835, 1, p. 59). Gall claimed that moral and
intellectual abilities were innately determined, in contrast to the optimistic environment of French
sensationalists like Condillac and ideologues like de Tracy. He argued that individual differences in
psychological abilities and tendencies among humans, and between humans and animals, could not be
explained in terms of environment and learning history, but had to be explained in terms of biological
endowment.
The postulated limitations on human intellectual and moral perfection led to inevitable accusations of
materialism, atheism, and fatalism, although Gall refused to take any position on the mind-body
problem. He was forced to leave Vienna and move to Paris when the Catholic Church and Austrian
authorities condemned his works. They were placed on the Index of Forbidden Books, and Gall was
denied Christian burial when he died in 1828. However, his doctrine attracted many followers,
notably Johann Casper Spurzheim (1776-1832), who collaborated with Gall on the publication of The
Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System (in four volumes between 1810 and 1819, followed
by a popular edition of the same text). It was Spurzheim who coined the term phrenology, which Gall
never used (Clarke & Jacyna, 1987).