PSYC 4600.002 Lecture 7Outline of Last Lecture I. David Kinnebrook and his MistakeII. Development in Early Psychologya. Psych as experimental disciplineb. Research on Brain Functionc. Phrenologyd. Research on the Nervous Systeme. The Mechanistic SpiritIII. The Beginning of Experimental Psychologya. Parent Countries b. Universities in EnglandIV. Helmholtz/Webber/Fechnera. Hermann Von Helmholtzi. Contributions to the New Psychologyb. Ernst Webberi. Two Point Thresholdsii. Just Noticeable Differencec. Gustav Theodor Fechneri. Mind and Body: Quantitative Relationshipii. Methods of psychophysicsV. Formal Founding of PsychologyOutline of Current LectureI. No Multitasking AllowedII. The Founding Father of Modern Psychologya. Wilhelm Wundti. Influenceii. Work1. Cultural Psychology2. The study of Conscious Experiencea. Mediate Experienceb. Immediate Experiencec. Method of Introspection d. Elements of conscious experiencei. Sensationsii. Feelingsiii. Tridimensional theory of feelings1. Organizing the elements of conscious experience2. Fate of Wundt's Psychology in GermanyThese 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 psychologyiii. Legacy III. Other developments in German Psychologya. Hermann Ebbinghausi. Research on Learningii. Research with Nonsense SyllablesIV. Other Early German Psychologistsa. Franz Bretano (1838-1917)b. Carl Stumph (1848-1936)c. Oswald Kulpe (1862-1915)Current Lecture- No Multitasking Allowed o In 1861, Wilhelm Wundt, 29-year-old researcher, had never heard of multitasking o Inspired by Bessel’s work on the “personal equation” o Interested in whether one can attend to two stimuli at once o 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) o Wundt modified a pendulum so that it presented both an auditory and visual stimulus. - The Founding Father of Modern Psychology o Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)  Established first laboratory  Edited first journal  Investigated the foundations of psychology:  Sensation, perception, attention, feeling, reaction, and association o Why Wundt? o Why not Fechner? o Psychology is unusual in that there is a clear consensus about who founded the science - Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) o 1st formal course 1867 at Heidelberg o Principles of Physiological Psychology  1873 & 1874  Arguably his masterpiece o 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 o 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 laboratorymethods  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  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 o Legacy  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 heplaced 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) o Inspired by Fechner (nearly 80,retired) successfully experimented on higher mental processes o Investigated learning and memory o Changed the way association (learning) is studied o Research on learning  First venture into a truly psychological area (not part of physiology) Before Ebbinghaus:  Learning was studied by