19 th century the science of psychology. johann friedrich herbart 1776 – 1841 textbook in...
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19th Century
The Science of Psychology
Johann Friedrich Herbart 1776 – 1841 Textbook in Psychology (1816) Psychology as a science, newly founded
upon experience, metaphysics and mathematics (1824)
Although thought the mind could not be studied experimentally (the mind acts as an integrated whole which could not be fractionated), he believed that the mind could be explained mathematically
Provided no room for innate ideas or a priori concepts
Instead, the elements of consciousness (and unC) are to be understood in terms of the dynamical, mechanical laws of physics and so are subject to be understood via mathematics
Johann Friedrich Herbart For Herbert, ideas had a force or energy of
their own (a la Leibnizian monads) and so the laws of association were not necessary to bind them
His system, referred to as psychic mechanics, proposed that ideas had the power to attract or repel other ideas, depending on their compatibility
Ideas attempt to gain expression in consciousness and compete with each other to do so
Johann Friedrich Herbart At any given moment a group of compatible
ideas are in consciousness and constitutes the apperceptive mass, that to which we are attending.
Ideas outside the apperceptive mass (incompatible ideas) will be repressed by the powers of the ideas in the mass.
He used the term limen (anticipating Fechner’s JND) to describe the threshold between conscious and unconscious and his goal was to mathematically express the relationships among the apperceptive mass, the limen, and the conflict among ideas.
Johann Friedrich Herbart He applied his ideas to education by
offering suggestions on how to teach effectively: 1) Review the material already learned 2) Prepare the students for new material by
giving overview of upcoming material 3) Present the new material 4) Relate the new material to what has already
been learned 5) Show applications of the new material and
give an overview of next material to be learned
Hermann von Helmholtz 1821-1894 Considered to be one of the
greatest scientists of the 19th century because of his contributions to the fields of physics, physiology, and eventually psychology
Paved the way for the emergence of experimental psychology
Helmholtz Disagreed with the concept of vitalism which
states that life comes from a force beyond physical and chemical processes alone Because it was not physical the “life force” was
not conducive to scientific analysis. The materialist position (Helmholtz and
others) stated that life could be explained in terms of physical and chemical processes and thus there is no need to exclude the study of life or anything else from the realm of science
Hermann von Helmholtz Through research he was able to
demonstrate the application of the principle of conservation of energy to living organisms Energy can be converted from one form to
another, but it cannot be created or destroyed Helmholtz measured the speed of nerve
conduction, finding that nerve conduction in humans to be between 165 to 330 feet per second This provided further evidence that physical-
chemical processes are involved in our interactions with the environment rather than some mysterious process
Hermann von Helmholtz Theory of Perception For Helmholtz, sensations are raw elements
of experience, and perception is the sensation after being given meaning by the person’s past experience
To explain the transformation from sensation to perception he relied on the ideas of unconscious inference of past experience Humian notion
Also introduced the concepts of stereopsis and perceptual learning
Hermann von Helmholtz He devised a theory of color vision which proposed
three types of color receptors corresponding to the three primary additive colors
Trichromatic theory The firing of these receptors in various combinations
results in subjective color experiences corresponding to various wavelengths of light
He also proposed a resonance place theory of auditory perception in which the pitches of sound we hear are determined to a great extent on where along the basilar membrane the most vibration is occurring in response to a sound vibration
Hermann von Helmholtz Helmholtz vs. Kant Helmholtz disagreed and thought the
categories were derived through experience
Suggested that if our experience were different, even our (supposedly innate) mathematical axioms would be different
However did agree that the perceiver determined the nature of sensation (however due to past experience rather than innate categories)
Christine Ladd-Franklin 1847-1930 Psychologist, logician, mathematician First woman student to enter Johns
Hopkins But no PhD because she was an icky girl with
cooties! Worked in Helmholtz's laboratory Proposed a theory of color vision which
was based on evolutionary theory and the evolution of the physiology of the system
Achromatic first developed, color later, and color vision itself developed over time
Ernst Weber
1795-1878 Physiologist
interested in sense of touch and kinesthesis (muscle sense)
The Just Noticeable Difference
Ernst Weber Investigated the sense of touch and mapped
out the sensitivity of touch for the entire body using the two-point threshold
Smallest distance between two points for them to be perceived as such (instead of one)
Sensitivity ranged from the most sensitive on the tongue to least sensitive on the back
His work in kinesthesis led to the determination of the just noticeable difference (JND), the least amount of change necessary to notice a difference along a particular dimension between two stimuli
Ernst Weber With his research he was able to determine
Weber’s law (or Weber-Fechner law) – the finding that the amount of change necessary to notice a difference (JND) is a constant fraction of the type of stimulus under investigation
E.g. lifted weights: 1/40 of reference weight This was the first quantitative law in psychology
The relationship between stimulus and perception Perception a function of stimulus intensity and not
based on absolute differences between stimuli, but relative difference
Gustav Fechner 1801-1887 Psychophysics
Study of the relationship between the body and the mind
Elemente der Psychophysik
Gustav Fechner Early work (more than 40 works
published by 30) included efforts in physics and mathematics
Turned to more psychological topics and at one point studied afterimages, for which he needed a bright stimulus
He chose the sun Subsequently injured his eyes, fell ill
and suffered major depression, resigned post at Leipzig
Gustav Fechner
Recovered rather suddenly about three years later and became deeply religious
Renounced his former materialism and turned to poetry and metaphysics
Eventually became interested in the problem of the psychological-physical relationship
Gustav Fechner Sought to express the relationship between
mental and physical events His research and further mathematical
workings with Weber’s law resulted in Fechner’s formula describing the relationship
He speculated that for mental sensations to change arithmetically the physical stimulus must change geometrically
S = k log R S is the sensation, k is a constant, and log R the
logarithm of the physical intensity of the stimulus He had shown that under proper laboratory
conditions reliable data regarding psychological phenomenon could be collected
Gustav Fechner His further research included studies on the
absolute threshold – the lowest intensity at which a stimulus can be detected, and the difference threshold – the amount a stimulus magnitude that needs to be changed before a person detects a difference
In studying these psychophysical measures Fechner developed various methods of research
Method of limits Standard plus varying stimulus that is presented in greater
(or lesser) amounts; find the range that equals the standard or look for absolute thresholds
Method of constant stimuli Standard plus varying stimulus that is presented randomly
Method of adjustment Subject varies; average difference between variable
stimulus and standard noted
Gustav Fechner Developed a doctrine of panpsychism Panpsychism is the doctrine that
mind, in some sense of the term, is everywhere
Fechner's panpsychism carried with it the notion of a “world-soul” or “world-mind” of which everything is a part Recall Spinoza
Gustav Fechner Other stuff Psychophysical techniques still employed (now
with catch trials) Later turned his attention to aesthetics to
determine what leads to a judgment of beauty Analyzed 20,000 paintings from 22 museums
Predicted that if the corpus callosum were split, consciousness would as well
W. James being foolish: “Fechner’s book was the starting point for a new
department in literature, which it would be impossible to match for the qualities of thoroughness and subtlety, but of which, in the humble opinion of the present writer, the proper psychological outcome is just nothing.”
Early Approaches to Psychology
The New Science
Early Approaches to Psychology At this point in time the modern Psychology was
ready to be a full-fledged science Others had been advocating it as a separate
endeavor and did everything to promote it as such without actually engaging in the science itself
Bain Spencer
Still others were engaging in the research but more from the realm of physics or physiology proper
Helmholtz Weber
Wilhelm Wundt 1832-1920 The founder of psychology First lab devoted exclusively to the
study of psychology proper 1879 Sorry James, but no
Wundt took the diverse achievements of others and himself and synthesized them into a unified program of research
Psychology’s first school (group of individuals who share common assumptions, work on common problems, and use common methods) was formed
Voluntarism
Wilhelm Wundt With Helmholtz and Fechner paving the way,
Wundt had both a reason and a means for attempting the scientific study of psychology
However he was not wed to the previous, sometimes dualist, sometimes strictly empirical, approaches of his predecessors
For him, the subject matter of psychology was the “manifold of consciousness”, to be studied by means of experimental psychology
Includes more than the interpretation of the objects of sense, but also emotion, imagery, memory, attention etc.
Wilhelm Wundt ““Mind,” “intellect,” “reason,” “understanding,” etc.,
are concepts... that existed before the advent of any scientific psychology. The fact that the naive consciousness always and everywhere points to internal experience as a special source of knowledge, may, therefore, be accepted for the moment as sufficient testimony to the right of psychology as a science... “Mind,” will accordingly be the subject to which we attribute all the separate facts of internal observation as predicates. The subject itself is determined wholly and exclusively by its predicates.”
What the mind does is the object of study Psychology proper is synonymous with physiological (in
this sense the causal laws governing mind) and experimental psychology
Wilhelm Wundt Note however that Wundt was in no way a
strict materialist or reductionist Mind could not simply be reduced to matter He early on recognized the failures of both
previous dualistic and monistic forms of arguments, and that the recent technological developments would not solve the issue
Furthermore, for Wundt it was not psychology’s place to do so either
Wilhelm Wundt Psychology’s goal was to understand
both simple (basic processes of the mind) and complex (higher mental processes) conscious phenomena
For simple phenomena experimentation was to be used, for complex phenomena experimentation could not be used – only various forms of naturalistic observation could be used
Wilhelm Wundt For Wundt, there were two types of
experience Mediate experience and data are
obtained via measuring devices and thus are not direct
Immediate experience and data are events in human consciousness as they occurred
This was to be the subject matter of psychology
Wilhelm Wundt He and his assistants used a variety of methods but
primarily ‘introspection’ However his experimental introspection was not the
unstructured self-observation used by earlier (and some later) philosophers/“psychologists”
Pure introspection Wundt’s introspection used laboratory instruments to
present stimuli, in most instances the subject was to respond with a simple response such as saying “yes” or “no”, pressing a key
Experimental introspection In his research he also used a method developed by
Franciscus Donders to measure differences in reaction time when various mental activities were required by the experimental situation
Mental chronometry
Wilhelm Wundt There are two basic types of mental
experience, sensations and feelings Sensations occurred when a sense organ is
stimulated and the impulse reaches the brain These can be described in terms of modality,
intensity, and quality Feelings accompanied sensations and could
be described along three dimensions, pleasantness – unpleasantness, excitement – calm, and strain – relaxation
Tridimensional theory of feelings
Wilhelm Wundt For Wundt, perception is a passive process
governed by the stimulation present, the physical makeup of the person, and the person’s past experience
The interaction of these factors makeup the person’s perceptual field and the part of this field the person attends to is apperceived, apperception and selective attention are the same
Apperception is active and voluntary The active role of attention
Elements which are attended to can be arranged and rearranged according to the person’s will, thus arrangements not experienced before can be produced
‘creative synthesis’
Wilhelm Wundt Distinguished between physical and
psychological causality Wundt believed that physical causality
is a reality because events could be predicted on the basis of antecedent conditions, but psychological causality was not possible
Can’t predict volition as it is due to unconscious (though deterministic) influences
Wilhelm Wundt Though he did not believe that higher mental
processes could be studied experimentally, they were reflected in human culture
The nature of the higher mental processes could be deduced from the study of such cultural products as religion, social customs, myths, history, language, morals, art, and the law
Recall Comte Wundt’s twenty year study of these things
culminated in his 10-volume work, “Folk Psychology”
Wilhelm Wundt
Some of Wundt’s students Cattell Titchener Witmer Munsterburg Spearman Hall
Titchener 1867-1927 For Titchener the goals of
psychology were the determination of the what, how, and why of mental life
The what was learned through introspection – the cataloging of the basic mental elements that make up conscious experience
The how answered the question of how the elements combined
The why involved the neurological correlates of mental events
As psychology was the experimental analysis of consciousness, he sought to describe mental experience – the structure of the mind
Hence the school was called structuralism
*Wundt was not a structuralist in the sense his student Titchener was. Cognition was more than the sum of its parts.*Wundt was not a structuralist in the sense his student Titchener was. Cognition was more than the sum of its parts.
Titchener “When we are trying to understand the mental processes of a child or
dog or an insect as shown by conduct and action, the outward signs of mental processes,… we must always fall back upon experimental introspection… we cannot imagine processes in another mind that we do not find in our own. Experimental introspection is thus our one reliable method of knowing ourselves; it is the sole gateway to psychology”
Note that in this light a metaphysical claim is made that on the nature of psychology, i.e. psychology is a method, its subject matter would involve only that which was amenable to that method
Titchener Titchener’s introspection was more complicated
and required more of the subject than Wundt’s “The general rules of introspection are as follows: be
impartial, be attentive, be comfortable, be perfectly fresh.”
Introspection in Titchener’s laboratory required the subject to describe the basic, raw, elemental experiences which form complex cognitive experience
He wanted sensations not perceptions, if, in the report, the subject responded with the name of the object rather than the elemental aspects of the stimulus, the subject committed a stimulus error
Titchener He concluded that the elements of consciousness
(the mind) were sensations (elements of perceptions), images (elements of ideas) and affections (elements of emotions)
The elements could be known only by their attributes
Attributes of sensations and images were quality, intensity, duration, clearness, and extensity
Affections could have the attributes of only quality, intensity, and duration
Titchener did not agree with Wundt’s tridimensional theory of emotion, emotions were described in terms of one dimension – pleasantness – unpleasantness
Titchener He described how the elements combine
by using the law of contiguity as many others had done before
What gives sensations and events meaning is the images and events with which the sensation has been associated contiguously in the past
These associations form a core or a context
Thus this description of what gives meaning to sensations is called the context theory of meaning
Titchener The decline of structuralism was
inevitable as people began to question the use of introspection as a viable method in research
Other factors which contributed to the decline were the development of the study of animal behavior, the lack of interest in practical applications on the part of structuralists, and the development of behaviorism and objective methods of research
Franz Brentano 1838 -1917 For Brentano, the important aspect of the
mind was not what was in it but what it did, study should emphasize the mind’s processes
Mental processes are aimed at performing some function thus his view was called act psychology
All mental acts incorporate something outside of itself
Intentionality He employed phenomenological introspection
– introspective analysis of intact, meaningful experiences
Carl Stumpf 1848-1936 Like Brentano, Stumpf argued for study of
intact, meaningful experiences, (phenomenology)
Influenced the development of Gestalt psychology
The three “founders” of Gestalt psychology studied with Stumpf
Stumpf and a student Oskar Phungst helped investigate the Clever Hans phenomenon
Edmund Husserl 1859-1938 For Husserl, there are two types of introspection, one
focuses on the intentionality described by Brentano and the second focuses on subjective experience – the processes a person experiences
This second introspection focuses on the essences of mental processes
He referred to it as pure phenomenology His goal was to create a taxonomy of the mind –
describe the mental essences by which humans experience themselves
The phenomenologies of Brentano, Stumpf, and Husserl all insisted that the proper subject matter of psychology was intact, meaningful psychological experiences
This approach was to impact Gestalt psychology and existentialism
Oswald Kulpe 1862-1915 In contrast to Wundt and Titchener, Kulpe proposed
that some thought could be imageless and also that the higher mental processes could be studied experimentally and set out to do so by using his method called systematic experimental introspection
The imageless thought controversy continued for many years, and highlighted the methodological problems of introspection
The most influential work which came out of the Würzburg school (where Kulpe was the leader) was the idea of mental set
Mental set is a determining tendency, which causes the person to behave in certain ways completely unaware that they are doing so
The mental set can be induced by instruction or by simply the person’s past experiences
Hans Vaihinger 1852-1933 Proposed that societal living requires that we
give meaning to our sensations, and we do that by inventing terms, concepts, and theories and then acting “as if” they were true
In other words, we can’t know whether our sensations correspond to reality, but we act as though they do
This invention of meaning is part of human nature
The ‘useful fiction’
Hermann Ebbinghaus 1850-1909 Researched learning and
memory using a unique methodology
This was important because this was the first time that learning and memory had been studied as they occurred and it illustrated that these processes could be studied objectively
Many of his findings are still cited today and most of the major conclusions reached are still valid today
Ebbinghaus Method He developed nonsense syllables to use as stimuli in
his research These provided series of stimuli that were essentially
meaningless The subject is to learn (memorize) a series of syllables
by looking at them sequentially until mastery Then after various time intervals they were to relearn
the same list The difference in number of exposures to relearn the
list in comparison to the number of exposure to mastery at the initial exposure was called the savings score
Ebbinghaus Among the conclusions were: More rapid forgetting during the first
hours following learning and slower thereafter
Overlearning (continuing to study past mastery) decreased the rate of forgetting
Distributed practice was more effective than massed practice