Physiological Psychology

Abstract

Physiological psychology inc1udes aH studies concerned with physiologic correlates of behavior. So wide a scope makes a reviewer painfully aware of how much he must omit. I have chosen those areas in which there seems to me most progress, or most controversy, or both. Sensory processes are dealt with in their respective chapters. The principal emphasis is on the role of the CNS2 in behavior, a choice reflecting the reviewer's preoccupation. Yet, neural (or hormonal) factors are merely specified as so many constraints which the physiology of the organism places upon its behavior. Such limited view contrasts with that of a distinguished neurophysiologist, Eccles (39), who has summarized recent oscillographic studies of the nervous system under the title, The Neurophysiologic Basis oj the Mind.To the reviewer the absence of any convincing physiological correlate of learning is the greatest gap in physiological psychology. Apparently, the best we can do with learning is to prevent it from occurring, by intercurrent cere bral stimulation through implanted electrodes (101, 120), by cerebral abla tion (80,117,127), or by depriving otherwise intact organisms, early in life, of normal sensory influx (60, 92). Accordingly, we shaH leave work on higher functions to the end and begin with neural and hormonal regulations of hunger, thirst, sex, and emotional behavior, then turn to the effect of electro shock convulsions, and conclude with recent work on cerebral lesions and ablations.BIOLOGY OF "DRIVES" AND "MOTIVES": HUNGER AND THIRST Complexity and simplicity are relative affairs. To the learning theorist, eating and drinking are &imple activities leading to primary need reduction. To the physiological psychologist, phenomena of eating and drinking are problems. What tells the animal when to start, and, more importantly, when to stop with his eating or drinking? And howdo animals manage to shift their preference to those substances in which they are deficient?

Criteria for unconscious cognition: Three types of dissociation

“…For example, two brain functions are said to be doubly dissociable if one lesion impairs function A but not function B, and another lesion does the opposite (Shallice, 1979;Teuber, 1955). Figure 6D shows a hypothetical clinical data pattern in which long-and short-term retention performance is measured in patients with two types of brain lesions.…”

Evidence for dissociation of impairment on auditory discrimination and delayed response following lateral frontal lesions in monkeys

“…On the other hand, lateral frontal lesions produce severe impairment on delayed response and delayed alternation, unlike cortical lesions elsewhere in the frontal lobe (4,17,25,27,28,30). In other words, alterations after frontal lesions in two classes of behavior, those involved in "emotion" and those involved in tests of the delayed-response type, may be doubly dissociated (36).…”

Pharmacological dissociation of memory: Anisomycin, a protein synthesis inhibitor, and leupeptin, a protease inhibitor, block different learning tasks

“…From this it follows that any treatment which produces a significant effect on the primary operations of neurons will produce memory disturbances. Similar problems are encountered in lesion studies and, as a response to them, the double-dissociation tactic (Teuber, 1955) has gained increasingly widespread usage. In this two lesions and two behaviors are used and an attempt is made to show that each lesion selectively interrupts one behaviorIthUs each lesion-behavior pair serves as a control for nonspecific effects of the other lesion.…”