PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

the study of the physiological basis of behaviour. Physiological psychology is primarily concerned with the relationship between psychological processes and the underlying physiological events, or, in other words, the mind-body phenomenon. Its focus is the function of the brain and the rest of the nervous system in activities (e.g., thinking, learning, feeling, sensing, and perceiving) recognized as characteristic of human and other vertebrate animals. Physiological psychology has continually been involved in studying the physical basis for the reception of internal and external stimuli by the nervous system, particularly the visual and auditory systems. Other areas of study have included the physiological bases for motivated behaviour, emotion, learning, memory, cognition, and mental disorders. Also considered are other physical factors that directly affect the nervous system, including heredity, metabolism, hormones, disease, drug-ingestion, and diet. Theories of the relationship between body and mind date back at least to Aristotle, who conjectured that the two exist as aspects of the same entity, the mind being merely one of the body's functions. In the dualism of French philosopher Ren Descartes, both the mind and the soul are spiritual entities existing separately from the mechanical operations of the human body. Related to this is the psychological parallelism theory of German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Leibniz believed that mind and body are separate but that their activities directly parallel each other. In recent times such behaviourists as American psychologist John B. Watson moved away from consideration of the spiritual or mental and focused on observable human and animal behaviour and its relationship to the nervous system.