Pioneers of psychologyUpplaga 3

Modern psychology draws on more than three centuries of research and speculation. In a new edition, this text traces the evolution of this influential science through the personal triumphs and disappointments of an array of individuals from Descartes, Gall, and Kant to James, Piaget and Skinner. Some pioneers of psychology, like Wundt and Helmholz, were painstaking experimenters; others found themselves at the start of major movements, such as Ivan Pavlov, whose studies of the psychology of digestion led to the founding of modern behaviourism, and Sigmund Freud, who set out to develop a neurological model of the mind and launched an entire intellectual revolution. This edition contains a new chapter on artificial intelligence. Beginning with Pascal's "Pascaline", and continuing through the works of Leibniz, Babbage, Turing, Newell, Shaw and Simon, this chapter presents the historical foundations of important and controversial issues in modern cognitive psychology. The general historical survey concludes with an underlying theme exploring the possibilities and limitations of a mechanistic explanation in psychology.