Psychology and Its Allied Disciplines

Volume 3: Psychology and the Natural Sciences

M. H. Bornstein

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135060084
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Geschichte & Theorie in der Psychologie

Published in 1984, Psychology and its Allied Disciplines is a valuable contribution to the field of Developmental Psychology.

1
		Psychology and Biology

William R. Uttal
Institute for Social Research
University of Michigan

Biology:	The science of the processes and structure of living organisms.
Mental Process:	A kind of information manipulation that has so far been identified only in living organisms.
Psychology:	The science that deals with mental processes and, ipso facto, a subfield of biology.

INTRODUCTION

The three brief definitions that serve as the header to this essay are intended to make a particular point concerning the relationship between the science of psychology and the science of biology. My thesis is that these two fields of science are related in the most intimate manner— psychology is as much an integral part of biology as are anatomy, ecology, or physiology: Mental processes are as much biological processes as are endocrine secretions and spike action potentials. The student of mental processes who loses sight of this basic fact does so at the peril of losing sight of the most fundamental premise of psychobiology—psychoneural equivalence—the idea that mind is a brain function—and exposes himself to cultism, mysticism, and inconsistency outside the body of modern scientific thinking. To assert this premise so strongly is not to say that the emphases of psychology are not different from the emphases of anatomy for example, but rather to note that scientific psychology's origins and goals are no more different from any of the other biological sciences than they are from each other. Psychologists typically find themselves in a separate department or institute from other biological scientists, but mainly because their methods and the specific objects of their research attention differ from those of other biological sciences, not because there is any fundamental distinction to be made between the intellectual or conceptual bases of the biological and psychological fields of inquiry. To propose a contrary view is implicitly to accept a kind of dualistic thinking that has decreasing acceptability in today's scientific thought.

The methodological distinction that does exist between psychology and biology exists for the simplest of practical reasons—psychologists are dealing with a particular type of biological process that is considerably more complicated than are most other outcomes of physiological processes. Consciousness and most interesting preconscious mentation are the outcomes of unimaginably (and perhaps uncomputably and unanalyzably) complicated interactions among neurons. Most biologists, on the other hand, whether they study the secretory function of endocrine glands or the ionic mechanisms of membrane permeability (or, better, semipermeability), are dealing with mechanisms and processes that are much simpler in both principle and practice than those encountered in psychology. We do know quite a bit about the chemistry of ionic transport across a membrane, or of digestion; we know virtuallynothing about the myriad interactions that occur among neurons to produce even the simplest thought.

Although it is not always the case in conceptual discussions of this kind, in this particular context what we mean by simplicity is relatively easily appreciated. Ionic transport is a process that can be fully understood in terms of individual molecular mechanisms at a single point in space: the response of the aggregate of all points on the membrane is not, in principle, different from the response of the single point. In the context of the mind, however, aggregation introduces problems that are not evident in the responses of the individual neuron. In fact, from one point of view, the mind can be thought of as totally a function of aggregation, of concatenation, and of interaction: In this case, the study of individual neurons tells us virtually nothing about the function of the aggregate. Indeed, extrapolations from the recent history of computer science clearly show that the particular “technology” (i.e., the particular materials from which the elements of an information system are made) is really of little consequence. Minds, according to thispoint of view, would emerge regardless of the nature of the material (e.g., relays, vacuum tubes, transistors, integrated circuits, neurons, jelly beans) as soon as the appropriate level of interactive complexity was reached.

This practical problem—complexity—in no way mitigates the most fun damental metaphysical premise—psychoneural equivalence—of the very biological science that is contemporary psychology. That premise asserts that all psychological processes are equivalent to, or identifiable with, some state or set of states of the great neural networks of our brain. Mind is a brain (and thus a biological) process; it is no more nor no less than that; the functioning brain is both necessary, at least at the present level of technology, and sufficient to account for all psychological processing. No nonbiological, nonbrain process must be invoked to account for any aspect of mind. This neuroreductionistic monism, while asserted in a dogmatic and radical form in the preceding sentences, is implicit in a somewhat more subtle form in most modern psychological research. The very act of carrying out a controlled experiment using the “method of detail” of John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) or René Descartes (1596–1650) or, even more germanely, any excursion into a laboratory dedicated to “physiological psychology” implicitly attests to a belief in this same monistic physicalism, even if the scientist should somewhat inconsistently adhere to an immaterialistic dualism in some other aspect of his life.

We do not know all of the details of thisphysicalism yet, of course, but clearly the main goal of modern psychobiology is to understand the exact nature of the relationship between the brain and the mind. This is the main theme unifying not only the widely diverse activities of this science, but also this essay. In the following sections, I expand upon these general points. First, I shall present a history of the mind-brain (body) problem. Then, I shall identify what seem to be the major scientific and philosophical issues currently guiding research in the field of psychobiology. Next, I shall discuss the major theoretical approaches that have been proposed as solutions to these problems. A cautious look at the future constitutes the next section, and, finally, a few brief conclusions will be drawn. The raisons d'être for this excursion into interpretation are to consider in a more precise fashion the present relationship of psychology and biology and to speculate about the future prospects of that association.

A HISTORY

We do not have to delve too deeply into the history of modern scientific psychology to see the exceedingly close relationship between its historical evolution and that of experimental physiology—the name of the more general science of organic function. (Physiology, of course, is a rubric that should encompass psychology as well as certain other subject matters, if one adhered to some logical taxonomy of the biological sciences.) Like other fields of biological science, physiology grew out of the needs to control agriculture and animal husbandry and to solve medical problems that have plagued humanity. The first psychologists must have found the origins to their speculations about the nature of mind in similar practical problems—the question of how we felt, learned, enjoyed, etc., the obvi ous difference between the living and the dead, the problem of pain, and the question of the personalization of the objects and causal forces of nature—to mention only a few of the most obvious. At first, the solutions posed to these great human problems, all of which are involved with the issue of mind in one way or another, were framed in dualistic terms. An air of mystery was generated to help explain why we seemed to know so little—there were “unknowable things,” it was asserted, and thus we could not know everything. Later, when the search for scientific and intellectual understanding became more respectable, the scientific method evolved under the stimulation of Grossteste (1168–1253), Bacon (1214?–1292), and Hobbes (1508–1679). As the applicability of the scientific method to the study of biological processes, in general, and then psychological processes, in particular, became acceptable, there was almost a simultaneous explosion in both physiology and psychology. Harvey's (1578–1657) demonstration of the circulation of the blood, Vesalius's (1514–1564) remarkable anatomical discoveries, and Descartes's physiological (though dualistic) interactionistic theory of the mind were all nearly contemporaneous.

The subsequent histories of physiology and of psychology were also intimately intertwined. By the middle of the nineteenth century when, among other notable works, Bain (1855) wrote his milestone text on The Senses and the Intellect, the framework of a biological psychology was well developed and firmly rooted in the anatomical, physiological, and physical discoveries of the previous decades. Although the pictures and language in the books of that time are somewhat quaint and the details have changed over the years, neither Bain's nor, similarly, Ferrier's (1886) views of physiological psychology are different in fundamental principle from those expressed in contemporary texts. Both Bain and Ferrier, as well as their contemporaries, were aware of the sensory-integration-effector organization of the brain, the Bell-Magendie law,¹ the gross anatomy of the brain, the idea of primary sensory projection regions, topographic mapping, and many other modern concepts.

The twin facts that physiological psychology has existed as a more or less respectable science for a couple of centuries and that mind has been accepted as but another function of the brain for at least as long do not dispute the equally solid fact that a more phenomenological and molar psychology is also necessary for a complete description of mental events. The complexities of the great neural networks of the central nervous system are of sufficient magnitude to guarantee that there will be, in practice, no neuroreductive theory of most psychological processes no matter how valid the monistic philosophy or the neuroreductionistic metaphysics. Looking backward, we can see that psychology has of necessity turned again and again to mentalistic vocabularies and methods. The present rise of cognitive or “human information processing” psychol ogy is but another example of this mentalistic revival. It was only in the most dismal of days of a radical positivistic behaviorism that this science went so far as actually to reject the existence of mind and thus to change the content of the science from rich mind to interesting, but sterile (in the context of the study of mind) behavior. However extreme and whatever the momentarily aberrant view of what constitutes the “proper content” of psychological science, mental processes do not lose their fundamental biological origins. Even the most positivistic behaviorist did not deny the biological origins of mind. Behaviorism did, however, lead to a dark age in the history of scientific research in the field then called physiological psychology.

Other biological themes than neuroreductionism also permeate psychological research. The evolutionarisms of Lamarck (1744–1829), Darwin (1809–1882), Wallace (1823–1913), and many others throughout history, regardless of the specific mechanisms each theoretician invoked, all speak to the problem of change, not only in anatomic form, but also in mental process. All of these intellectual innovators are as much in the line of psychology's history as they are in that of anatomy. To support this argument, consider the following. It is not well known, but Darwin wrote on the developmental psychology of his own son (Darwin, 1877); it is much better known that he studied the expression of human emotions (Darwin, 1872).

The enormous developments in biochemical genetics in recent times, stimulated initially by Mendel's (1822–1884) work, have provided putative mechanisms for the transmission of traits from generation to generation and have detailed our knowledge of how the structure of the DNA double helix permits the introduction of random changes into the heritage of a species. Contemporary work by psychobiologists such as Jerison (1973) relating the evolution of the brain to the evolution of mental processes is in exactly this same intellectual tradition. The evolution of behavior is in its own right a topic that has a rich history dating at least from Romanes's (1848–1894) pioneering studies of animal intelligence up through the impressive work of contemporary behavioral geneticists (see Fuller, in this volume).

Just as evolutionary theory has contributed to psychological thinking, psychology has both been enriched by and enriched other patently biological areas of study. The anatomical discoveries concerning the structure of the brain by such illuminaries as Willis (1621–1675), Bell (1774–1842), Megende (1783–1855), and Flourens (1794–1867), among many others, also contributed to the ideas of cerebral localization, first embodied in the now rejected theories of Gall (1758–1828) and Spurzheim (1776–1832) concerning the localization of psychological “faculties.” Subsequently, these theories have been accepted as a major conceptual building block of modern studies of the localization of psychological function in the brain.

Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the electrical activity of the nervous system was not only an early physiological topic, but also, in the hands of Volta (1745–1827) and Galvani (1737–1798),the impetus to the discovery of the physical aspects of electricity. The development of modern electrical, and subsequently electronic, equipment went hand in hand with the development of the techniques used in electrophysiology until the most recent times (see Chapanis and Marks, in this volume).

Today we see psychology paying electrical engineering back for this help: psychology provides models for new developments in artificial intelligence and robotics. The influence of ecology, the analysis of the biological systems including both flora and fauna as interacting entities,can also be discerned in the motivating forces behind modern field studies of a wide variety of animals in their natural habitats carried out by such workers as Schaller (1963, 1972) and Van Lawick-Goodall (1971). The biochemical sciences have also contributed to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying psychological processes, but 1 shall not deal with such issues, as they are covered in greater detail by Kornetsky (in this volume).

In summary, psychology is an integral and inseparable part of biological science. This contention is supportable from several different points of view. From a basic metaphysical point of view, ail psychological processes, most psychobiologists assert nowadays, are nothing but the expression of one set of functions of the neural substrate—the brain. From an innovative and conceptual point of view, psychology is stimulated by developments in the other biological sciences and in turn stimulates them. No matter how dedicated to his neurons or electron microscopes, any scientist specializing in the study of the central nervous system must be in at least some not-so-small part motivated by thehope that his discoveries will ultimately contribute to the alleviation of psychological maladies or to the understanding of the still inscrutable relationship between the mind and the brain. With this contention in hand, let me now turn to a consideration of the issues, theories, and prospects of biological psychology.

THE ISSUES

In the Introduction, 1 expressed a radical psychoneural monism. This assertion, however, should not be interpreted to mean that the field of psychobiology has matured to a point at which the major issues of brain-mind relationships have even begun to be resolved. In fact, it may not be incorrect to assert equally strongly that we probably know less (with a high degree of certainty) now than we did a decade ago about the relationship between mind and brain. Many of the experimental findings that were the fundamental building blocks of psychobiological theory in the 1960s are now appreciated to be equivocal.

There is, however, an even more fragile relationship between data concerning neurons and theory purporting to explain mind in neural terms. It must not be forgotten that neurophysiological facts obtained in the laboratory become theories when applied to the mind-brain problem; and theories (as well as facts) can change their meaning as the years go by. Methodological difficulties (e.g., the uncertainty associated with microsurgery on the very small brains of typical laboratory animals), sampling difficulties (e.g., the modest number of experimental animals or individual cells that can be subjected to complex procedures) as well as the variability in even the best controlled procedures, and the enormous adaptability and flexibility of nervous tissue in response to surgical insults make animal research “noisy” at best. All of these practical difficul...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Series Prologue
• Contributors to This Volume
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Psychology and Biology
• 2. Psychology and Engineering
• 3. Psychology and Genetics
• 4. Psychology and Mathematics
• 5. Psychology and Medicine
• 6. Psychology and Pharmacology
• 7. Psychology and Physics: An Historical Perspective
• Biographical Notes
• Author Index
• Subject Index