Chapter 8
Mechanization and Quantification
1. Which of the following advanced that idea that philosophy is simply the study of bodies in
motion?
a. René Descartes
b. Francis Bacon
c. John Locke
d. Thomas Hobbes
Answer: d. Thomas Hobbes
Rationale:
Thomas Hobbes, known for his materialist philosophy, considered philosophy to be the study
of bodies in motion, emphasizing the physical aspects of existence over abstract concepts.
2. “The heart is a spring, the nerves are strings, the joints are wheels giving motion to the
whole body.” This mechanistic approach to life is encountered in the work of
a. George Berkeley.
b. Thomas Hobbes.
c. Immanuel Kant.
d. Christian von Wolff.
Answer: b. Thomas Hobbes.
Rationale:
Thomas Hobbes espoused a mechanistic view of life, where he compared the human body to
a machine, with various parts functioning together to produce motion and action.
3. According to the text, the epistemology embraced by Thomas Hobbes was
a. an unqualified empiricism, since knowledge begins with the senses.
b. nominalism, since the truths we know are truths about words.
c. rationalism, since deduction and the geometric method provide the only basis for verifiable
conclusions.
d. a complicated combination of empiricism, rationalism and nominalism.
Answer: d. a complicated combination of empiricism, rationalism and nominalism.
Rationale:
Hobbes' epistemology was a combination of empiricism, rationalism, and nominalism, as he
believed in the importance of sensory experience, deduction, and the role of language in
understanding truths.
4. The author of Leviathan was
a. Joseph Ignace Guillotin.
b. Julien Offray de la Mettrie.
c. Sir Charles Bell.
d. Thomas Hobbes.
Answer: d. Thomas Hobbes.
Rationale:
Thomas Hobbes authored Leviathan, a seminal work in political philosophy, wherein he
discusses the structure of society and the nature of political authority.
5. In terms of ontology, Hobbes was
a. an interactionist, believing in the reality of mind and body.
b. an idealist.
c. a thoroughgoing materialist.
d. a pluralist.
Answer: c. a thoroughgoing materialist.
Rationale:
Hobbes was a thoroughgoing materialist, asserting that everything, including mental
phenomena, could be explained in terms of physical matter and motion.
6. According to Hobbes, the behavior of human beings can be understood
a. as a complex interaction of mind and body.
b. in terms of the free choices that we make.
c. in the same quantitative fashion that we employ in our understanding of the physical world.
d. in the context of probability. Psychology could never be an exact science.
Answer: c. in the same quantitative fashion that we employ in our understanding of the
physical world.
Rationale:
Hobbes believed that human behavior could be understood quantitatively, similar to how we
understand physical phenomena, emphasizing the deterministic nature of human actions.
7. Philosophy to Hobbes was
a. the queen of the humanities.
b. essentially a social science.
c. a branch of theology.
d. simply science.
Answer: d. simply science.
Rationale:
Hobbes viewed philosophy simply as science, reflecting his empirical and materialistic
approach to understanding the world.
8. When theorizing about human physiology, Descartes relied heavily on the hydraulic model
he observed in moving statues. In Descartes’ view of humans, _____ flowing in nerves is
(are) analogous to water flowing in the pipes of the statues.
a. the pineal gland
b. air
c. animal spirits
d. very fine atoms
Answer: c. animal spirits
Rationale:
Descartes proposed the existence of "animal spirits" flowing in nerves, akin to water flowing
in pipes, as part of his physiological model explaining human movement and sensation.
9. Descartes believed that
a. many movements in humans and all movements in animals were of a purely mechanical
and nonreflective nature.
b. All movements in humans and in animals are mechanical.
c. All movements in humans are of a reflective nature and some movements in animals are of
a reflective nature.
d. All human behavior is rational and no animal behavior is rational.
Answer: a. many movements in humans and all movements in animals were of a purely
mechanical and nonreflective nature.
Rationale:
Descartes believed that many human movements and all animal movements were purely
mechanical, driven by physical processes and devoid of conscious reflection.
10. According to Descartes, the soul, in humans,
a. is tied to the body, but nevertheless autonomous and free.
b. cannot prevent some motions (especially in cases of strong emotions). The soul is therefore
not completely autonomous.
c. is not really tied to the body and is completely free.
d. plays no role whatever in any kind of movement.
Answer: b. cannot prevent some motions (especially in cases of strong emotions). The soul is
therefore not completely autonomous.
Rationale:
Descartes argued that the soul is not completely autonomous and cannot prevent some bodily
motions, especially in cases of strong emotions, suggesting a degree of interdependence
between the soul and the body.
11. A muscle with an attached nerve from a frog's leg contracts in a sealed glass tube. At one
end of the glass tube is a pipette containing a drop of water. When the muscle contracts, the
drop of water is not forced out. This demonstration by __________ proved embarrassing to
the theory of nervous action advanced by ____________.
a. Descartes . . . Swammerdam
b. Swammerdam . . . Descartes
c. Swammerdam . . . Hobbes
d. Descartes . . . Hobbes
Answer: b. Swammerdam . . . Descartes
Rationale:
Swammerdam's experiment, where the muscle contracted without forcing out the drop of
water, contradicted Descartes' theory of nervous action, which proposed that nerve fibers
controlled muscle movement.
12. Descartes advanced many hypotheses about the pineal gland. Neils Stensen demonstrated
that some of these hypotheses were incorrect. Which of the following were challenged by
Stensen?
a. the pineal gland moves from side to side
b. the pineal gland is richly supplied with nerves
c. animals do not have pineal glands
d. all of the above
Answer: d. all of the above
Rationale:
Niels Stensen challenged Descartes' hypotheses about the pineal gland, demonstrating that it
does not move from side to side, is not richly supplied with nerves, and that animals indeed
have pineal glands.
13. __________ was the first to clearly demonstrate a spinal reflex.
a. Sir Charles Bell
b. Julien Offray de la Mettrie
c. Stephen Hales
d. Pierre Jean-Georges Cabanis
Answer: c. Stephen Hales
Rationale:
Stephen Hales was the first to clearly demonstrate a spinal reflex, contributing to our
understanding of the nervous system's function.
14. __________ drew distinctions between voluntary and involuntary actions and may have
been the first to use the terms stimulus and response in a manner comparable to modern
usage.
a. Robert Whytt
b. Stephen Hales
c. Johann August Unzer
d. François Magendie
Answer: a. Robert Whytt
Rationale:
Robert Whytt drew distinctions between voluntary and involuntary actions and may have
been the first to use the terms stimulus and response in a manner comparable to modern
usage, contributing to the early understanding of reflex actions.
15. __________ was the first to employ the word reflex in connection with sensory-motor
functions.
a. Joseph Ignace Guillotin
b. Julien Offray de la Mettrie
c. Johann August Unzer
d. Stephen Hales
Answer: c. Johann August Unzer
Rationale:
Johann August Unzer was the first to employ the word "reflex" in connection with sensorymotor functions, laying the groundwork for the study of reflex actions in psychology and
neuroscience.
16. _________ was the first to introduce the terms afferent and efferent.
a. Robert Whytt
b. Stephen Hales
c. Jan Swammerdam
d. Johann August Unzer
Answer: d. Johann August Unzer
Rationale:
Johann August Unzer was the first to introduce the terms "afferent" and "efferent,"
contributing to the development of terminology in neuroscience and physiology.
17. ________, author of Man a Machine, advanced a radical mechanistic philosophy.
a. Jacques Quételet
b. Francis Galton
c. Hermann von Helmholtz
d. Julien Offray de la Mettrie
Answer: d. Julien Offray de la Mettrie
Rationale:
Julien Offray de la Mettrie, author of "Man a Machine," advanced a radical mechanistic
philosophy, suggesting that human behavior and cognition could be explained purely in terms
of mechanical processes.
18. In the tradition of la Mettrie, was a thoroughly materialistic physician who emphasized
close connections between psychological processes, neurological activity, and environmental
influences.
a. Pierre-Jean-George Cabanis
b. Etienne Bonnot de Condillac
c. Jan Swammerdam
d. Robert Whytt
Answer: a. Pierre-Jean-George Cabanis
Rationale:
Pierre-Jean-George Cabanis, following in the tradition of de la Mettrie, emphasized
materialistic explanations for psychological processes, neurological activity, and
environmental influences, contributing to the development of physiological psychology.
19. _____ was the English researcher who discovered the motor function of the ventral root
of the spinal chord.
a. Robert Whytt
b. Stephen Hales
c. Sir Charles Bell
d. Johann August Unzer
Answer: c. Sir Charles Bell
Rationale:
Sir Charles Bell was the English researcher who discovered the motor function of the ventral
root of the spinal cord, a significant contribution to our understanding of the nervous system's
organization and function.
20. _____ was the French researcher who verified the motor function of the ventral root of
the spinal chord and discovered the sensory function of the dorsal root of the spinal chord.
a. Pierre-Jean-George Cabanis
b. Etienne Bonnot de Condillac
c. François Magendie
d. Claude-Adrien Helvetius
Answer: c. François Magendie
Rationale:
François Magendie was the French researcher who verified the motor function of the ventral
root of the spinal cord and discovered the sensory function of the dorsal root, advancing our
understanding of the nervous system's role in sensation and movement.
21. In his work on the doctrine of the specific energies of nerves, _____ argued that a given
nerve is only capable of transmitting a single, specific sensation quality
a. Johannes Muller
b. Sir Charles Bell
c. François Magendie
d. Joseph Gall
Answer: a. Johannes Muller
Rationale:
Johannes Müller proposed the doctrine of the specific energies of nerves, suggesting that each
nerve fiber is specific to a particular sensation quality, regardless of the type of stimulation it
receives.
22. The doctrine of the specific energies of the nerves implies that
a. experience is not totally dependent upon nervous structure.
b. we are directly aware of objects in the world.
c. we are directly aware not of objects, but of our nerves themselves.
d. the mind is only sometimes tied directly to the machinery of the body.
Answer: c. we are directly aware not of objects, but of our nerves themselves.
Rationale:
According to the doctrine of specific energies, our perception is determined by the specific
nerves activated, suggesting that we are directly aware of our nerves rather than external
objects.
23. _____ developed the conviction that mental functions and personality characteristics are
located in specific areas of the brain.
a. Franz Joseph Gall
b. Hermann von Helmholtz
c. Paul Broca
d. Pierre Flourens
Answer: a. Franz Joseph Gall
Rationale:
Franz Joseph Gall developed phrenology, which proposed that mental functions and
personality traits are localized in specific areas of the brain, leading to the practice of reading
personality traits based on the shape of the skull.
24. The literal meaning of phrenology is
a. science of the skull.
b. science of the brain.
c. science of the mind.
d. science of shape.
Answer: c. science of the mind.
Rationale:
Phrenology, derived from Greek roots, literally means "science of the mind," reflecting its
focus on determining personality traits and mental faculties based on the shape and size of the
skull.
25. Phrenology was a “productive false start” in each of the following ways EXCEPT
a. drawing attention to the brain as the central organ of intellect
b. demonstrating that human nature could be scientifically studied
c. spurring research into localization of function in the brain
d. endorsing the method of cranioscopy
Answer: d. endorsing the method of cranioscopy
Rationale:
Phrenology contributed to the development of neuroscience by drawing attention to the
brain's central role in intellect, demonstrating the scientific study of human nature, and
stimulating research into the localization of brain functions. However, it did not endorse the
method of cranioscopy, which is not a characteristic aspect of phrenology.
26. _____ used the method of ablation to find look for evidence to support the claims of
phrenology, but he found no such evidence.
a. Franz Joseph Gall
b. Hermann von Helmholtz
c. Edward Bradford Titchener
d. Pierre Flourens
Answer: d. Pierre Flourens
Rationale:
Pierre Flourens conducted experiments using the method of ablation to investigate the claims
of phrenology but found no evidence to support its assertions regarding the localization of
mental functions in specific brain areas.
27. _____ discovered that articulate or spoken speech is localized in the left inferior frontal
gyrus.
a. Franz Joseph Gall
b. Julius Eduard Hitzig
c. Paul Broca
d. Pierre Flourens
Answer: c. Paul Broca
Rationale:
Paul Broca discovered the localization of articulate or spoken speech in the left inferior
frontal gyrus of the brain, a region now known as Broca's area, contributing to our
understanding of brain function and language processing.
28. Electrical stimulation of the cortex is a technique pioneered by
a. Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Kaspar Spurzheim.
b. Julius Eduard Hitzig and Theodor Fritsch.
c. Paul Broca and Pierre Flourens.
d. Hermann von Helmholtz and Johannes Müller.
Answer: b. Julius Eduard Hitzig and Theodor Fritsch.
Rationale:
Julius Eduard Hitzig and Theodor Fritsch pioneered the technique of electrical stimulation of
the cortex, which involves applying electrical currents to specific brain regions to observe
their effects on behavior and sensation.
29. _____ developed a staining procedure that enhances the features of nerve elements
a. Camillo Golgi
b. Julius Eduard Hitzig
c. Paul Broca
d. Santiago Ramón Y Cajal
Answer: a. Camillo Golgi
Rationale:
Camillo Golgi developed the Golgi staining technique, which stains nerve cells, allowing for
clearer visualization of their structures, contributing to the study of neuroscience and brain
anatomy.
30. _____ discovered a gap between nerve cells and theorized that neural transmission
proceeds from the synapse to the axon of a nerve cell
a. Camillo Golgi
b. Julius Eduard Hitzig
c. Paul Broca
d. Santiago Ramón Y Cajal
Answer: d. Santiago Ramón Y Cajal
Rationale:
Santiago Ramón y Cajal discovered the synaptic gap between nerve cells and proposed that
neural transmission occurs from the synapse to the axon of a nerve cell, laying the foundation
for our understanding of neuronal communication.
31. _____ wrote Integrative Action of the Nervous System, which laid the foundations for
modern neurophysiology.
a. Camillo Golgi
b. Julius Eduard Hitzig
c. Sir Charles Sherrington
d. Santiago Ramón Y Cajal
Answer: c. Sir Charles Sherrington
Rationale:
Sir Charles Sherrington wrote "The Integrative Action of the Nervous System," which laid
the foundations for modern neurophysiology by introducing concepts such as synaptic
transmission and reflex arcs.
32. _____ measured the speed of a nervous impulse.
a. Johannes Müller
b. Hermann von Helmholtz
c. Jacques Quételet
d. Francis Galton
Answer: b. Hermann von Helmholtz
Rationale:
Hermann von Helmholtz conducted experiments to measure the speed of nervous impulses,
contributing significantly to the understanding of neural communication and the functioning
of the nervous system.
33. The original derivations of the well-known symmetrical bell-shaped curve were set forth
by
a. Jacques Quételet.
b. Francis Galton.
c. Abraham DeMoivre.
d. Blaise Pascal.
Answer: c. Abraham DeMoivre.
Rationale:
Abraham DeMoivre was the mathematician who first derived the symmetrical bell-shaped
curve, known as the normal distribution, providing a fundamental concept in statistics and
probability theory.
34. _____ was the first to apply statistics to the moral arena. One way he did so was by
studying relationships between criminal behavior and age.
a. Jacques Quételet
b. Francis Galton
c. Abraham DeMoivre
d. Karl Friedrich Gauss
Answer: a. Jacques Quételet
Rationale:
Jacques Quételet was a pioneering statistician who applied statistical methods to various
fields, including criminology. He studied the relationships between criminal behavior and
age, contributing to the understanding of social statistics.
35. ________ was the first to use the term co-relation (later changed to correlation). He also
contributed to the technical mathematical basis of correlation's.
a. Jacques Quételet
b. Francis Galton
c. Karl Pearson
d. Karl Friedrich Gauss
Answer: b. Francis Galton
Rationale:
Francis Galton introduced the term "correlation" and made significant contributions to the
mathematical basis of correlation analysis, laying the foundation for modern statistical
methods in the study of relationships between variables.
36. ________ was among the first to use graphs to illustrate the importance of sanitary
conditions in field hospitals
a. Francis Galton
b. Florence Nightingale
c. Dorthea Lynde Dix
d. Jacques Quételet
Answer: b. Florence Nightingale
Rationale:
Florence Nightingale pioneered the use of graphical presentations to demonstrate the
significance of sanitary conditions in field hospitals during the Crimean War, highlighting the
importance of hygiene and sanitation in healthcare settings.
37. _________ was one of the first to use descriptive social statistics in campaigns to improve
the treatment environments for people with mental illnesses.
a. Benjamin Rush
b. Jacques Quételet
c. Francis Galton
d. Dorthea Lynde Dix
Answer: d. Dorthea Lynde Dix
Rationale:
Dorthea Lynde Dix utilized descriptive social statistics in her campaigns advocating for
improved treatment environments for individuals with mental illnesses, contributing to
advancements in mental healthcare and social reform.
Test Bank for A History of Psychology: Ideas and Context
Brett D. King, Wayne Viney, William Douglas Woody
9780205987184
