"Psychologically" Important Developments in Physiology & Biology

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The Discovery Of Reaction Time

- The "Personal Equation" and the Development of Chronographs/Chronoscopes

- Franciscus Donders (1818-1889) demonstrated that reaction time could be used to measure the mental complexity of a task

Research on the Nervous System

- The Bell-Magendie Law (Charles Bell (1774-1842) & Francois Magendie (1783-1855))

- Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies (Johannes Muller, 1801-1858)

- Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894)
- Rate of Nerve Conduction
- Theories of Perception & Color Vision
- Resonance-Place Theory of Auditory Perception

Advances in the Study of Brain Functioning

- Phrenology (Franz Joseph Gall, 1758-1828)

- Technique of Ablation (Pierre Flourens, 1794-1867)

- Localization of Brain Function (Paul Broca, 1824-1880)

- Electrical Stimulation of the Brain (ESB)

The Development of Psychophysics
(The relationship between physical and psychological events)

- The Concept of ÒSensory ThresholdsÓ (Ernst Weber, 1795-1878)

- Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887)

- Fechner developed the major psychophysical methods still in use today:

- Method of Limits

- Method of Constant Stimuli

- Method of Adjustment

The Introduction of Evolutionary Theory (1858)
(Charles Darwin, 1809-1882)

- Evolutionary Theory provided a framework for the development of one of psychologyÕs most influential schools of thought - Functionalism.

- It created an interest in the Measurement of Human characteristics and abilites, pioneered by Francis Galton (1822-1911)

The Discovery of Conditioned Reflexes (1899)

- Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

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