BIOPSYCHOLOGY 8e
John P.J. Pinel
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Topics
1.1 What Is Biopsychology?
1.2 What Is the Relation between
Biopsychology and the Other
Disciplines of Neuroscience?
1.3 What Types of Research Characterize
the Biopsychological Approach?
1.4 What Are the Divisions of
Biopsychology?
1.5 Converging Operations: How Do
Biopsychologists Work Together?
1.6 Scientific Inference: How Do
Biopsychologists Study the
Unobservable Workings of the Brain?
1.7 Critical Thinking about
Biopsychological Claims
Neurons and the Human Brain
The human brain Neurons
An amazingly intricate Cells that receive and
network of neurons transmit electrochemical
signals
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Neuroscience
• The scientific study
of the nervous
system
• May prove to be the
brain’s ultimate challenge:
Does the brain have the
capacity to understand
something as complex as
itself?
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The Purpose of This Chapter
Neuroscience comprises
several related disciplines.
The primary purpose
of this chapter is to Biopsychology
introduce you to one
of them:
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Four Major Themes of This Book
1 Thinking Creatively about Biopsychology
2 Clinical Implications
3 The Evolutionary Perspective
4 Neuroplasticity
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What Is
Biopsychology?
Defining Biopsychology
Biopsychology
is the scientific
study of the
biology of
behavior.
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History of Biopsychology
The Organization of Behavior
D.O. Hebb (1949)
• Key factor in biopsychology’s
development into a major
neuroscientific discipline
• Proposed that psychological
phenomena might be produced
by brain activity
• Helped discredit the notion that
psychological functions were
too complex to be derived from
physiological activities
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What Is the
Relation between
Biopsychology and
the Other Disciplines
of Neuroscience?
Biopsychology’s Relationship to
Other Disciplines of Neuroscience
Biopsychology is an
integrative discipline. Neurophysiology
Biopsychologists draw
together knowledge from Biopsychology
the other neuroscientific
disciplines and apply it to
the study of behavior.
Neuropathology
Neurochemistry
Neuroanatomy
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Disciplines of Neuroscience
That Are Relevant to Biopsychology
Functions and Structure of
activities of the Neurophysiology Neuroanatomy the nervous
nervous system system
Neuroscience
Effects of Chemical
drugs on Neurochemistry bases
neural of neural
activity activity
Neuropathology
Nervous Interactions
system disorders between the nervous
system and the endocrine Copyright ©
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What Types
of Research
Characterize the
Biopsychological
Approach?
Biopsychological Research
Three dimensions along which
biopsychological research varies:
TYPES OF
SUBJECTS METHODS
RESEARCH
Human Nonhuman Experiments Nonexperiments Pure Applied
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Advantages of Human and Nonhuman Subjects
HUMAN SUBJECTS NONHUMAN SUBJECTS
• They can follow • Simpler brains make it
instructions. more likely that brain-
behavior interactions will
• They can report their be revealed.
subjective experiences.
• Insights arise from the
• They are often cheaper to comparative approach –
work with. making comparisons with
• They have a human brain. other species.
• Disadvantages? • There are fewer ethical
restrictions.
• Disadvantages?
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Experiments
Used to determine cause-and-effect relationships
Between- and within-subjects designs
Independent and dependent variables
(e.g., type of dog and level of fear)
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Confounded Variables
• Unintended differences
between conditions that can
influence the dependent
variable Independent Confounded
variable variable
• Can be difficult to eliminate
• Can make experiments
difficult to interpret
– Hard to tell how much of the
effect on the dependent
variable was caused by the Dependent
independent variable and how variable
much was caused by the
confounded variable
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Example of Good Experimental Design
Lester and Gorzalka (1988)
• Demonstrated the Coolidge
effect in female hamsters
• Showed that female
hamsters were more
sexually receptive to an
unfamiliar male than to the
male they had already
copulated with during an
earlier test
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Nonexperiments
Quasiexperimental Studies Case Studies
• Studies of groups of • Focus on a single case or
subjects exposed to subject (e.g. Jimmie G.)
conditions in the real • Usually more in-depth than
world other approaches
• Not real experiments as • Good source of testable
potential confounded hypotheses
variables have not been
• Major problem is
controlled
generalizability: the degree
• Eg. Smoking studies
to which results can be
applied to other cases
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Pure and Applied Research
Pure Applied
Research: Research:
Many research Intended to
Conducted for
the purpose of projects havebring about
elements of both
acquiring some direct
knowledge approaches. benefit to
humankind
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What Are the
Divisions of
Biopsychology?
Six Major Divisions of Biopsychology
Physiological
psychology
Neuro-
Psycho-
psychology
physiology
Cognitive
neuroscience Psycho-
pharmacology
Comparative
psychology
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Physiological Psychology
• Division that studies the neural
mechanisms of behavior
• Uses direct manipulation of the
brain in controlled experiments
(e.g. surgical and electrical
methods of brain manipulation)
• Subjects usually
laboratory animals
• Strong focus on
pure research
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Psychopharmacology
• Similar to physiological
psychology
• Focuses on the
manipulation of neural
activity and behavior with
drugs
• Substantial portion of
research is applied
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Neuropsychology
• Studies the psychological
effects of brain damage in
human patients
• Cannot be studied in humans
by experimentation; focuses
on case studies and
quasiexperimental studies
• Has focused on cerebral
cortex, since it is most likely
to be damaged by accident
or surgery
• Most applied of the
biopsychological
subdisciplines
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Psychophysiology
• Studies the relation between physiological
activity and psychological processes in
human subjects.
• Typically uses noninvasive procedures
(e.g. electroencephalogram, measures
of eye movement)
Adapted from Iacono & Koenig, 1983.
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Cognitive Neuroscience
• Newest division of
biopsychology
• Focuses on the neural
bases of cognition
• Often employs human
subjects
• Key methods are
functional brain imaging
techniques
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Comparative Psychology
• Deals with biology of behavior
• Compares different species to
understand evolution, genetics,
and adaptiveness of behavior
• Uses laboratory and/or
ethological research
• Areas of research that often
employ comparative analysis:
– Evolutionary psychology
– Behavioral genetics
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Converging
Operations: How Do
Biopsychologists
Work Together?
Converging Operations
Using multiple approaches
to address a single question
• Strengths of one approach compensate
for the weaknesses of the others
Example: Korsakoff’s syndrome
• Characterized by severe memory loss
• Initially believed to be a direct consequence
of the toxic effects of alcohol on the brain
• Subsequent research: Largely caused by
brain damage associated with thiamine
deficiency, although the damage is
accelerated by alcohol
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Scientific
Inference: How Do
Biopsychologists
Study the
Unobservable
Workings of the
Brain?
Scientific Inference
The empirical method that
biopsychologists use to
study the unobservable
• Scientists measure what they
can observe, use these
measures as a basis for
inferring what they can’t
observe
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Illustration of Scientific Inference: Perception
of Motion Under Four Different Conditions
1 Eye is stationary,
and object is
2 Eye actively rotates
upward, and
stationary; therefore, Object is stationary;
retinal image therefore, retinal
is stationary. Image moves up.
No movement No movement
is seen. is seen.
3 Eye is stationary,
and object moves
4 Eye is passively
rotated upward
down; therefore, retinal by finger, and
image moves up. object is
Object is seen to stationary;
move down. therefore, retinal
image moves up.
Object is seen to
move down.
Conclusion: Therefore, the brain sees as movement the total movement of an object’s image on the retina minus
that portion produced by active movement of the eyes: It does not subtract passive movement of the eyes.
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Critical Thinking about
Biopsychological
Claims
Critical Thinking
The ability to evaluate
scientific claims by
identifying potential
omissions or weaknesses
in the evidence
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Analysis:
• Exciting account
Subject: José Delgado reported in popular
Claimed a charging bull press
could be tamed using • Many possible
stimulation of its caudate alternative explanations
nucleus • Morgan’s Canon:
Give precedence to the
simplest interpretation
for a behavioral
observation
Analysis:
• Adoption for human
Subject: Egas Moniz therapy based largely
Developed the prefrontal on study of a single
lobotomy, cutting chimpanzee (Becky)
connections between the • Inadequate postoperative
prefrontal lobes and the evaluation of human
patients
rest of the brain to treat
• Procedure can produce
mental illness
undesirable side effects:
amorality, lack of
foresight, emotional
unresponsiveness,
epilepsy, urinary
incontinence
The Prefrontal Lobotomy
The leucotome was
inserted six times
into the patient’s
brain with the After each insertion,
cutting wire the cutting wire was
retracted. extruded and the
leucotome rotated to
cut out a core of tissue.
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Watch: Greetings
Watch: Themes of Biopsychology
Animation: The History of the Brain
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