Chapter 5: Wundt and His Contemporaries A History of Psychology (3rd Edition) John G. Benjafield

Can Eminence be Measured? Korn, David, and Davis (1991): Surveyed prominent historians of psychology Asked who they considered to be the 10 most important psychologists of all time, in order of importance: Wundt, James, Freud, Watson, Pavlov, Ebbinghaus, Piaget, Skinner, Binet, Fechner Tradition dates back to the work of James McKeen Cattell (1903): James, McKeen Cattell, Münsterberg, Hall, Baldwin, Titchener, Royce, Ladd, Dewey, Jastrow

Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) Studied with Müller and Helmholtz 1875: became a professor at University of Leipzig, Germany 1879: founded the first laboratory in experimental psychology Lab attracted many young scholars

Wundt’s Methods Derived in part from more established disciplines, especially chemistry Influenced by J.S. Mill’s notion of ‘mental chemistry’ However: Mill was skeptical of the possibility of discovering mental elements through introspection While: Wundt believed introspection appropriate if combined with experimental method

Wundt’s Methods 1. Laboratory research suitable only for simple psychological processes 2. Complex proceses require naturalistic observations Ex. our ability to use language

Wundt’s Lab (Biervliet, 1892) Approx. 20 persons of varying backgrounds and nationalities Divided into groups Each group: Worked on a different problem Had one member who was the chief experimenter Had one or more members who served as experimental participants

Introspection Two types of introspection: Self-observation: casually engaged in by everyone Open to personal bias Inner perception: deliberately observing one’s own mental processes Subjective unless made under controlled conditions

Example of an Experiment in Wundt’s Lab Materials: metronome Participant: Not listening to the metronome in ‘usual’ way (ie. while playing the piano) Task is to pay attention carefully to the experiences that the metronome elicits

Example continued What are the participants’ experiences as the metronome beats? Wundt argued that consciouness is rhythmically disposed Successive beats have same physical characteristics but different psychological characteristics

Terminology Apperception: process by which we organize and make sense out of our experience Creative synthesis: through apperception, our experiences become a unified whole and not just a series of elementary sensations Apprehension: the process by which individual impressions enter one’s consciousness Span of apprehension: how many impressions we could be aware of at one time Wundt estimated this number at 6

Wundt on Emotions Wundt believed that emotion was a central aspect of all psychological processes Close relationship between emotion and volition (acts of will) Voluntary acts: occur when there are conflicting emotions; acts of will develop more slowly

Tridimensional Theory of Feeling Basic feelings vary along three dimensions: Tension–relief Excitement–depression Pleasantness–unpleasantness Any feeling can be thought of as located within the three-dimensional space Wundt believed that this model was completely general

The Wundt Curve Wundt curve: relationship between the intensity of a stimulus and its pleasantness Vertical axis: the degree to which a person feels positive or negative in a particular situation How positive or negative you feel is a function that rises and then falls as a stimulus intensity increases Inverted U shape Wundt curve implies that we will get the most pleasure form moderate levels of stimulus intensity

Psychophysical Parallelism Wundt There is no psychical process which does not run parallel with a physical processes No point-for-point correspondence between every mental event and every event in the nervous system Mental structures have to be understood in terms of their own law of combination Fecher There is no psychical process which does not run parallel with a physical process Point-for-point correspondence between every mental event and every event in the nervous system

Complementary Explanations Psychology Studies the person Deals with the experiencing participant Physiology Studies the person Treats the person as an object

Cultural Psychology Völkerpsychologie = ‘folk psychology’ = cultural psychology Wundt’s aim was to ‘trace the evolution of mind in man’ Needed to adopt in psychology the same approach that Darwin had adopted in biology

Wundt’s Influence Figure against whom many subsequent psychologists reacted negatively Ideas often distored Wundt’s cultural psychology is now being appreciated Why? For its recognition that the human mind is a product of social and historical forces

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) Educated at University of Bonn, Germany Travelled extensively in England and France By chance, came across a copy of Fechner’s Elements of Psychophysics Ebbinghaus was impressed by the potential for applying objective methods to the study of psychological processes Went on to conduct a series of investigations of learning and memory

Ebbinghaus’ Method Ebbinghaus pioneered the use of nonsense syllables A consonant followed by a vowel followed by a consonant Ex. pib, wol Benefits of using nonsense syllables: They are relatively meaningless Therefore relatively uninfluenced by previous learning Provide a quantifiable measure of learning and memory In terms of the number of syllables remembered, the number of trials required to learn a list, etc.

Ebbinghaus’ Method Ebbinghaus acted as his own participant Experiments involved constructing lists from a pool of 2,300 nonsense syllables All 2,300 were used before any were repreated Process: Go through the list from beginning to end, reading the syllables at a rate governed by a metronome (150 beats per minute)

Forgetting Curve Curve greatest immediately after learning Declined more gradually afterwards Remote associations: associations formed between all items in the list, not only between adjacent items

Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930) Studied at Harvard Was denied the degree because she was a woman 1905: served as the first woman president of the American Psychological Association

Calkins’ Method Participants learned pairs of items Became possible to attempt to determine which factors were the most important determinants of learning Ex. influence of frequency Technique became standard method in the study of human learning But has never received the same recognition as Ebbinghaus Came to be called the Paired Associates Method

Calkins’ Method Participant shown a list of pairs of items Ex. different colours paired with different numbers Participant is given one of the members of the pair and asked to give the first response that comes to mind

Practical Applications (Calkins [1896] 1966: 534): ‘The prominence of frequency is of course of grave importance, for it means the possibility of exercising some control over the life of the imagination and of definitely combating harmful or troublesome associations’

The Self Calkins: psychology is the study of the self Self = A totality; one of many characters A unique being An identical being A changing being

Franz Brentano (1838–1917) 1873: left Catholic priesthood 1874: Professor of Philosophy at the University of Vienna Student: Carl Stumpf

Franz Brentano Mental phenomena Physical phenomena Ex. a musical chord, which I hear Physical phenomena Ex. hearing a sound

Act Psychology Focus on the Act Vs. Wundt: focus on the experience Mental acts can be named only by an active verb Mental acts are intentional Laid the groundwork for phenomenological psychology

Classes of Mental Acts Ideating Judging Loving-Hating I see, I hear, I imagine Judging I acknowledge, I reject Loving-Hating I feel, I wish, I desire

Phenomenological Psychology Developed by Carl Stumpf and Edmund Husserl Method: attempt to describe consciousness as it presents itself to us Avoid presuppositions as to its nature or purpose Phenomenological approaches tend not to be experimental

Edmund Husserl Developed Brentano’s concept of intentionality Argued that by comparing a number of similar experiences, we can intuitively grasp their essential nature

The Würzberg School First decade of the 20th century Group of psychologists at University of Würzberg, Germany Mentor of the group: Oswald Külpe

Würzbergers’ Method Studied complex mental processes by means of introspection Vs. Wundt: only simple mental processes could be studied with introspection Systematic experimental introspection Participants looked back on their experiences after they had occurred and then described them Later retrospection

The Würzberg School Imageless thoughts: when no images correspond to a mental operation Determining tendencies: give thinking a direction

The Würzberg School Introduced several complications into psychology: Introspection could no longer be regarded as a simple procedure for investigating simple phenomena Some important mental processes appeared to be inaccessible to introspection because they were unconscious