THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY AND STRUCTURALISM, PART IHERMANN EBBINGHAUSHERMANN EBBINGHAUS (1850-1909)RESEARCH IN LEARNINGNONSENSE SYLLABLESA FAMOUS EXPERIMENTLEARNING TIMETHE FORGETTING CURVEOTHER EBBINGHAUS TOPICS OF RESEARCHTHE STATE OF PUBLICATIONSOMETHING INTERESTINGFRANZ BRENTANOFRANZ BRENTANO (1838-1917)THE STUDY OF MENTAL ACTSTHE STUDY OF MENTAL ACTSWUNDT VS. BRENTANOCARL STUMPFCARL STUMPF (1848-1936)PHENOMENOLOGYOSWALDE KULPEOSWALD KULPE (1862-1915)KULPE VS. WUNDTSYSTEMATIC EXPERIMENTAL INTROSPECTIONIMAGELESS THOUGHTOTHER TOPICS IN KULPE’S LABCONCLUSIONSDISCUSSION QUESTIONSDISCUSSION QUESTIONSDISCUSSION QUESTIONSDISCUSSION QUESTIONSDISCUSSION QUESTIONSFRIDAY, JANUARY 30th, 2015THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY AND STRUCTURALISM, PART IHERMANN EBBINGHAUS•No video, sorry!HERMANN EBBINGHAUS (1850-1909)•Did what Wundt thought was impossible – experimented on higher mental functions•The first psychologist to investigate learning and memory through experimental methods•Was interested first in history, literature, and philosophy, but happened to read Fechner’s Elements of Psychophysics, inspiring him to use rigorous methods for experimenting on the mindRESEARCH IN LEARNING•Ebbinghaus determined that the more repetitions it took for someone to learn something, the more difficult it was to remember–This echoes Fechner, who measured sensations by measuring the stimulus intensity necessary to produce a just noticeable difference in sensationNONSENSE SYLLABLES•Ebbinghaus used nonsense syllables as the material to be learned •Nonsense syllables: syllables presented in a meaningless series•Apparently he spoke so many languages that it was really hard for him to come up with syllables that really did mean nothing•Examples: lef, bok, or yat – he had 2300 of them that he randomly used in his experimentsA FAMOUS EXPERIMENT•Ebbinghaus compared how many repetitions were required for participants to memorize 80 syllables from Byron’s poem Don Juan to 80 meaningless syllables•It took 9 readings to memorize one stanza of Don Juan•It took nearly 80 repetitions to memorize the 80 meaningless syllables•He concluded that meaningless material is about nine times harder to learn than meaningful materialLEARNING TIME•He also discovered that the more we have to learn, the longer it will take us to learn itTHE FORGETTING CURVE•Material is forgotten rapidly in the first few hours after learning and more slowly after thatOTHER EBBINGHAUS TOPICS OF RESEARCH•Overlearning•Associations within lists•Reviewing material•The time elapsed between learning and recallTHE STATE OF PUBLICATION•Wundt’s journal could no longer handle the vast number of publication submissions•Ebbinghaus and physicist Arthur Konig founded the Journal of Psychology and Physiology of the Sense Organs in 1890•About psychology and physiology, they said:–These fields have “consequently grown together…to form one whole; they promote and presuppose one another, and so constitute two coequal members of one great double science” (quoted in Turner, 1982, p. 151)SOMETHING INTERESTING•Ebbinghaus had no theory, no school of thought, no followers•He just liked to experiment•His legacy is just as much, if not more important, as Wundt’s, and his research has withstood the test of timeFRANZ BRENTANO•No video again!FRANZ BRENTANO (1838-1917)•Began his life as a priest and philosophy professor •Wrote a book refuting many of Wundt’s views…even from the beginning, psychology was very divided!•Preferred observation to experimentation, but didn’t disown experimentation•He considered observation to be more complete, more realTHE STUDY OF MENTAL ACTS•Brentano disagreed with Wundt that the conscious experience should be the focus of psychology•He preferred the action of the mind to the content of the mind•Act psychology: Brentano’s system of psychology that focused on mental activities (seeing instead of what has been seen, for example)THE STUDY OF MENTAL ACTS•He thought this could not be studied through introspection•He advised two methods:•Through memory (recalling the mental processes involved in a particular mental state)•Through imagination (imagining a mental state and observing the accompanying mental processes)WUNDT VS. BRENTANO•There is a reason why you have heard of Wundt and not Brentano•Wundt published a lot more•It was a lot easier to study content than processesCARL STUMPFCARL STUMPF (1848-1936)•Kind of a musical genius, so it made sense that he was best known for his work Psychology of Tone (1883 and 1890)•Extremely productive, a competitor of Wundt•Two of his students went on to found Gestalt psychologyPHENOMENOLOGY•Like Brentano, Stumpf wasn’t too interested in the content of the mind•He believed that phenomena were the appropriate subject matter for psychology•Phenomenology: Stumpf’s introspective method that examined experience as it occurred and did not try to reduce experience to elementary components because components on their own do not represent the reality of experience–Also included an unbiased description of immediate experience as it occursOSWALDE KULPEOSWALD KULPE (1862-1915)•Planned to study history, but studied with Wundt and switched to philosophy and experimental psychology•Wrote Outline of Psychology (1893), defining psychology as the science of the facts of experience that are dependent on the experiencing person•Later established a lab where he did a 180 and refuted a lot of Wundt’s workKULPE VS. WUNDT•Began in agreement, that it was impossible to experiment on the higher mental processes•Kulpe became influenced by Ebbinghaus – if you can study memory experimentally, why not thought?SYSTEMATIC EXPERIMENTAL INTROSPECTION•Kulpe developed systematic experimental introspection: an introspective method that used retrospective reports of subjects’ cognitive processes after they had completed an experimental task•Wundt did not like to have his subjects describe their experiences (remember that he wasn’t very qualitative) •The role of experimenter became much more involvedIMAGELESS THOUGHT•Wundt thought that you could reduce conscious experience to sensations•Kulpe concluded differently that imageless thought was possible: meaning in thought can occur without any sensory component•This idea was actually being simultaneously proposed in the U.S. and France, suggesting that the Zeitgeist of the times
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