PSYC 4600 002 Lecture 7 Outline of Last Lecture I David Kinnebrook and his Mistake II Development in Early Psychology a Psych as experimental discipline b Research on Brain Function c Phrenology d Research on the Nervous System e The Mechanistic Spirit III The Beginning of Experimental Psychology a Parent Countries b Universities in England IV Helmholtz Webber Fechner a Hermann Von Helmholtz i Contributions to the New Psychology b Ernst Webber i Two Point Thresholds ii Just Noticeable Difference c Gustav Theodor Fechner i Mind and Body Quantitative Relationship ii Methods of psychophysics V Formal Founding of Psychology Outline of Current Lecture I No Multitasking Allowed II The Founding Father of Modern Psychology a Wilhelm Wundt i Influence ii Work 1 Cultural Psychology 2 The study of Conscious Experience a Mediate Experience b Immediate Experience c Method of Introspection d Elements of conscious experience i Sensations ii Feelings iii Tridimensional theory of feelings 1 Organizing the elements of conscious experience 2 Fate of Wundt s Psychology in Germany These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute 3 Criticism of Wundtian psychology III IV iii Legacy Other developments in German Psychology a Hermann Ebbinghaus i Research on Learning ii Research with Nonsense Syllables Other Early German Psychologists a Franz Bretano 1838 1917 b Carl Stumph 1848 1936 c Oswald Kulpe 1862 1915 Current Lecture o o o o o o o o o o o o o No Multitasking Allowed In 1861 Wilhelm Wundt 29 year old researcher had never heard of multitasking Inspired by Bessel s work on the personal equation Interested in whether one can attend to two stimuli at once Wundt tested whether one person can perceive two stimuli at the same moment Stimuli Sound of a bell sight of a pendulum Subject Himself Conclusion Can t attend to two stimuli simultaneously Stimuli register sequentially Time for both stimuli to register 1 8th of a second Gedankenmesser thought meter Wundt modified a pendulum so that it presented both an auditory and visual stimulus The Founding Father of Modern Psychology Wilhelm Wundt 1832 1920 Established first laboratory Edited first journal Investigated the foundations of psychology Sensation perception attention feeling reaction and association Why Wundt Why not Fechner Psychology is unusual in that there is a clear consensus about who founded the science Wilhelm Wundt 1832 1920 1st formal course 1867 at Heidelberg Principles of Physiological Psychology 1873 1874 Arguably his masterpiece Influence Started position at Leipzig in 1875 Established lab at Leipzig in 1879 First a small room in the dining hall His students spread lab replicated Work Cultural Psychology Stages of human mental development in language art myths social customs law morals Essentially made a distinction between experimental and social psychology Thought that higher mental processes couldn t be studied via laboratory methods Learning and memory These were conditioned by language and culture Social forces still considered important in the development of cognitive processes The Study of Conscious Experience Subject matter Consciousness Voluntarism The idea that the mind has the capacity to organize mental contents into higher level thought processes Wundt argued that Conscious was not made up of elements or basic ideas of consciousness posited by British empiricists and the associationists Consciousness was the ability to actively organize or synthesize elements into larger elements Did agree there were elements of consciousness without them the mind would have nothing to organize Mediate experience Provides information about something other than the elements of experience The rose is red Immediate experience Unbiased by interpretation Redness Analogous to chemistry Need a periodic table of the mind The Method of Introspection Introspection Examination of one s own mind to inspect and report on personal thoughts or feelings Explicit rules and conditions Training 10 000 repetitions Elements of Conscious Experience Two elementany forms of experience Sensations Aroused whenever a sense organ is stimulated and the resulting impulses reach the brain Feelings The subjective complements of sensations but do not arise directly from a sense organ Tridimensional theory of feelings Pleasure displeasure Tension relaxation Excitement calm Organizing the elements of conscious experience We percieve the whole not individual sensations Apperception The active process by which mental elements are organized Contra British empiricists not passive and mechanical The fate of Wundt s psychology in Germany Spread rapidly but little long term effect of psychology Not appropriate for solving real world problems By 1910 American psychology was becoming more dominant Legacy o o o o o Economic difficulty after WWII Wundt s lab destroyed in WWII Criticism of Wundtian Psychology Introspection doesn t always yield agreement Wundt s controversial political opinions Began a new science Still one of the most if not the most important psychologists who ever lived History of psychology after Wundt consists of rebellion against the limitations he placed on the field Other developments in German psychology o Not everyone subscribed to Wundt s view of psychology o Common enterprise Expanding psychology as a science o Germany Still undisputed center of the movement o Developments in England give psychology a different them and direction o Influential themes Charles Darwin Theory of evolution Francis Galton Individual differences American psychology also influential Different factions began to rise Herman Ebbinghaus 1850 1909 Inspired by Fechner nearly 80 retired successfully experimented on higher mental processes Investigated learning and memory Changed the way association learning is studied Research on learning First venture into a truly psychological area not part of physiology Before Ebbinghaus Learning was studied by examining associations that were already formed o o o o Backwards approach Ebbinghaus s method Began with the initial formation of associations Controlled the conditions under which chains of ideas were formed Recorded the rate at which associations were formed Research with nonsense syllables Why nonsense syllables Several studies used nonsense syllables to determine the speed and conditions of memorization and forgetting Ebbinghaus forgetting