The Frog’s Role in Psychological
History
By Hannah Grigorian
and Ben Saad
The frog is iconic in the world of
psychology. It has been the subject of
many tests and references. The frog is such an appealing subject for such tests
as it has a long, pronounced nerve in the leg that is perfect to observe within
experiments. Luigi Galvani is perhaps to
first person in the field of psychology to experiment with frogs, more
specifically their legs. The story has
it that while Galvani was cutting open a frog’s leg on table used previously
for static electricity, the metal scalpel that had picked up the charge made
contact with the nerve ending, causing the frogs leg to twitch. This gave birth to relationship between movement
or energy and electricity. This was monumental in the understanding of how the
body and muscles move. This opened up several new questions in the field of
science and also psychology and led to his experiments in the 1780s where the
connection between electricity and nerve activity was explored for treatment.
Herman Von Helmholtz continued
Giovanni’s research in 1850. In his experiment, he demonstrated the subtractive
reaction time method by subtracting the time it took from the electrical signal
sent from the thigh to create the movement, from the time it took from the
knee. Through this he was able to conclude that nerve conduction in was in fact
a measureable unit, and it frogs it was about 27meters/second. However, when he
tried to replicate this with humans he concluded that humans were too variable.
This followed suit with his teacher Johannes Muller’s views that the messages
sent throughout the human body would be too fast to ever measure.
The frog fascination spread and by
1904-1910 the frog pistol was gaining popularity. Invented by Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond this pistol was created
in order to demonstrate nerve stimulation in the leg of the frog. When a frog
leg was put onto a glass plate inside the contraption and the keys were pressed
down the contact would make the frog muscled contract inside the pistol.
However, even before they were used
to demonstrate the stimulation of nerves and the speed of electrical signals
frogs were used as remedies for ailments. Dried frogs were used as amulets and
worn around the neck in order to cure fits. Frogs have also been used as
metaphors in the field of psychology. A term sometimes used is a frog in
boiling water. This refers to several supposed experiments in the 19th
century where frogs were placed in water that was gradually heated to boiling.
Some reports claimed that when the water is heated slowly enough, the frog
takes no reflexive action to the heat; therefore it dies in the pot. While
these exponents with frogs actually took place, science today generally
considers the results to be untrue, and that frogs will try to escape water as
it heats up. The term is used metaphorically to describe the principle in which
people acclimate themselves to the subtle changes rather than realize that
change is happening and do something about it.
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