The New Psychology and Structuralism, Part IIE.B. TITCHENERE.B. Titchener (1867-1927)E.B. TitchenerSlide 5No Girls AllowedElements of ConsciousnessThe Content of Conscious ExperienceStimulus ErrorDefinition of ConsciousnessNo Application?IntrospectionSound Scientific ExperimentationExamples of Titchener’s StudiesThree States of ConsciousnessFundamentals of SensationSlide 17Just Kidding?Criticisms of StructuralismCriticisms of Structuralism – Introspection in generalCriticisms of Structuralism – Introspection in GeneralCriticisms of Structuralism – Titchener’s IntrospectionSlide 23Contributions of StructuralismDiscussion QuestionsSlide 26Slide 27Slide 28Slide 29Slide 30MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2ND, 2015THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY AND STRUCTURALISM, PART IIE.B. TITCHENERE.B. TITCHENER (1867-1927)•A British psychologist who altered Wundtian psychology and brought it to the United States •Claimed that his work on psychology, called structuralism, was representative of Wundtian psychology•But they were very different!E.B. TITCHENER•His family had little money, so he had to rely on his brains to earn scholarship money •Spoke many languages and had many hobbies (music, coin collecting)•Became interested in Wundtian psychology while studying philosophy at Oxford – he was pretty much the only one!•Traveled to Leipzig, where Wundt was studying, and earned his doctoral degree under Wundt•When he returned to England, his ideas were not accepted. He decided that greater opportunity was in the U.S., and he joined the faculty at CornellE.B. TITCHENER•Wrote extensively on psychology, his most influential works may be Experimental Psychology: A Manual of Laboratory Practice•These stimulated the growth of laboratory science in psychology in the United States•He was able to disseminate these widely due to his flair for language and translationNO GIRLS ALLOWED•Titchener didn’t do a lot of his own research but closely directed the content of his students’ research (and they worked tirelessly to please him)•Titchener did not allow women at his meetings of Titchener Experimentalists, but he did support their advancement in psychology•The first of his 56 graduate students was also the first woman to earn her doctorate in psychology, Margaret Floy Washburn•His society of Titchener Experimentalists is now called the Society of Experimental Psychologists and still meets annuallyELEMENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS•According to Wundt, the mind has the power to organize mental elements voluntarily through apperception•This differed from the passive and mechanistic view of British empiricists and associationists•Titchener did focus on the content of the mind and the way they were mechanically associated, but he did not like apperceptionTHE CONTENT OF CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE•Instead, Titchener thought psychology’s focus should be to determine the structure of consciousness and its component parts that formed our conscious experience•He believed that conscious experience is dependent on the person experiencing it•Temperature is to physics as the experience of heat is to psychologySTIMULUS ERROR•Stimulus error confuses the mental process with the object we are observing–Do not confuse an apple with the features of the apple that we process (color, brightness, and shape)–Thus, he preferred immediate to mediate experienceDEFINITION OF CONSCIOUSNESS•Titchener defined consciousness as the sum of our experiences as they exist at a given time•The mind is the sum of an individual’s experiences accumulated over the lifetimeNO APPLICATION?•Titchener wasn’t into actually applying this to anything•He did not think psychology should actually be applied to helping people, it should only be used to discover the structure of the mindINTROSPECTION•Titchener’s observers were highly trained to avoid stimulus error•Like Kulpe, Titchener used qualitative reports to study mental activities during introspection•Disagreed with Wundt in two fundamental ways: •Wasn’t into Wundt’s quantitative methodology•He emphasized the components of consciousness, not the whole of consciousness as Wundt did –Titchener had been highly influenced by the writings of James Mill and the mechanistic spiritSOUND SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTATION•“An experiment is an observation that can be repeated, isolated, and varied. The more frequently you can repeat an observation, the more likely are you to see clearly what is there and to describe accurately what you have seen. The more strictly you can isolate an observation, the easier does your task of observation become, and the less danger is there of your being led astray by irrelevant circumstances, or of placing emphasis on the wrong point. The more widely you can vary an observation, the more clearly will the uniformity of experience stand out, and the better is your chance of discovering laws.” (Titchener, 1909, p. 20).EXAMPLES OF TITCHENER’S STUDIES•A chord of three notes would be played and subjects, or reagents as he called them, would report on how many tones they heard, the mental characteristics of the sounds, and their experience of the sounds•A word would be spoken and subjects would report on how the word affected them, what ideas it provoked, etc.THREE STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS•Sensations: the basic elements of perception that occur in a sensory way and are evoked by physical objects in our environment–He made a list of these – 44,500 of them that could be combined to form perceptions and ideas!•Images: the elements of ideas that are found in the process that reflects experiences that are not present at the present moment•Affective states: elements of emotion among our experiencesFUNDAMENTALS OF SENSATION•Quality: the characteristic that clearly distinguishes each element from every other element (adjectives, basically)•Intensity: a sensation’s strength, weakness, loudness, or brightness•Duration: the course of a sensation over time•Clearness: the role of attention in conscious experience; experience that is not the focus of our attention is clearer than experience that is not the focus of our attentionFUNDAMENTALS OF SENSATION•Titchener believed that sensations and images had all four of these, but affective states lacked clearness–Why? Titchener didn’t think that affective states could exist if we are aware of them–He rejected Wundt’s tridimensional theory of feelings, saying that there was only
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