Biological And Cognitive Psychology
Psychology is an applied and academic field that involves the study of both the human mind and behavior. Psychology is normally studied so as to gain understanding of human thoughts, emotions, behavior and personality. The knowledge gained from such studies is normally used in the in treatment of mental illnesses, enhancement of performance and in ergonomics among others things (Wagner, 2005).
Psychology is said to have originated from philosophy and biology; and that it may have been coined by the Greek philosophers such as Aristotle and Socrates. The word psychology was derived from a Greek word psyche that means soul or mind. The study of Psychology as an educational field began after the establishment of a psychological lab in Germany by Wilhelm Wundt. He came up with the structuralism school of thought based on the analysis of sensations and feelings through the use of introspection; he believed that when people get trained properly then they would be able to identify the mental processes that accompanied feelings, thoughts and emotions.
Since then several other schools of thought have been generated to try and explain human behavior and thoughts; some of these include functionalism, psychoanalysis, behaviorism, humanism and cognitivism (Wagner, 2005). A lot of research and studies have been made so as to understand, explain and find solutions to various aspects of human life. From these studies several branches of psychology have come up and these include abnormal psychology, biological, clinical, cognitive, comparative, developmental, forensic, personality, school, industrial-organizational and social psychology.
Biological psychology or biopsychology is a branch of psychology that studies how the brain determines one’s behaviors. Since biological psychology involve the study of how the brain influences behavior; it is therefore important that one has an understanding of the physiology, anatomy and the biological processes affecting the functioning of the brain. One needs to have information on the brain, the nervous system and the neurotransmitters (Wagner, 2005)
The brain and the spinal cord make up the central nervous system .The cerebral cortex is the outermost part of the brain which performs cognition, sensation, motor skills and emotions functions of the brain. The brain is composed of four lobes which are frontal lobe – involved in higher expression of language and motor skills; the occipital lobe involved in interpreting visual stimuli and information; the temporal lobe which is involved in the interpretation of sounds and language; and the parietal lobe involved in the processing of tactile sensory information of pressure, touch and pain (Wagner, 2005).
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