1. From the Early Physiology to the Birth of Psychology
History and Systems of Psychology

2. Oops!
1795 Astronomer Neville Maskelyne saw that his assistant’s observations were different from his by 0.5s
Yelled at assistant
Only got worse
Fired him 5 months later, when differences got up to 0.8s
1815 Friederich Wilhelm Bessel, another astonomer
Interested in measurement errors
Found that they were common, even in the most experienced astronomers
“The personal equation”
Touched off a fascination with individual differences that eventually led to modern physiology

3. Electric nerves Luigi Galvani (1737-1798)
suggests that neural impulses are electrical.
His nephew, Giovanni Aldini ( )
continues his work
animating the severed heads of executed criminals

4. Something to Gall You Franz Josef Gall (1758-1828) Organology
The idea that distinct “Organs” comprise the mind
Identified 27, got 2 of them right
Language and word memory
Cranioscopy (later Phrenology)
Personality theory
All mental life can be traced to physiology
Emperor Francis I removed him from Vienna for these anti-Christian ideas
Separation of Church and Pate

5. The Father of Modern Physiology
Johnannes Muller
Professor of A & P at U of Berlin
Wrote the Handbook of the Physiology of Mankind
Published a paper every 7 weeks for 38 years
Specific energies of nerves
Impetus to seek out loci within CNS and find sensory receptors
Suicide during a bout of depression

6. Marshall Hall (1790-1857) Extirpation
Caveman with a color TV
Decapitated animals still move when nerve endings are stimulated
Voluntary movements depend on the cerebrum
Reflexive movement depends on spinal cord
Respiration depends on the medulla

7. Pierre Flourens ( )
Systematically destroyed bits of brain and spin in a variety of animals
Lots of pigeons
Cerebrum controls higher brain functions
Midbrain controls visual and auditory reflexes
Medulla does heartbeat and respiration

8. Paul Broca (1824-1880) The “Clinical Method”
Found individuals with difficulty speaking
Posthumous examination indicated lesions in the third frontal convolution
Broca’s area

9. Gustav Fritsch (1837 or 1838-1927) Eduard Hitzig (1838-1907)
Stimulated areas of the cerebral cortex with weak currents
Rabbits and dogs, mostly
Recorded motor responses
Opened door for more advanced methods

10. Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894)
Many, many discoveries
Calculated the speed of neural impulses
Varying legnths of frog neurons
Blasted the mystical, “instantaneous” idea of neurotransmission
Developed trichromatic theory of color vision
Developed theories of audition
Resonance
Harmony
Discord

11. Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934)
Determiend direction of travel for neural impulses
No Spanish journals
Only German, English, French
His work was overlooked for a very long time
Had to go through others
Frequently, others got the credit for his work
Nobel prize in 1906

12. Why Germany? Experimental physiology
Not availabe in F or E
Description and Classification in G
Mathematical deductive approach in F and E
Science in F and E: Chemistry and Physics
Germany: Everything from History to Literary criticism
G had lots of schools
F had 1
E had 2
Cambridge president:
“[Psychology] would be an insult to religion.”
Academic freedom in G

19. Ernst Weber (1795-1878) 2 pt threshold JND ratio
Weights: 1:40
Demonstrated that there is no direct correspondence between physical stimulus and our perception of it
Also revealed a way to research the relationship between body and mind
ΔR/R = K

20. Gustav Fechner (1801-1887) Scientific training at med school
Son of a minister
Day view vs. night view
Dr. Mises is born
Depression
Shock
Raw ham in spiced wine
Blindfolded
777
Chosen by god to solve all fo the world’s problems

21. Psychophysics: Psychology’s “First Conquest”
The study of relations between mental and physical processes (usually perception)
S = KlogR
Absolute threshold
Intensity at which the sensation first occurs
Differential threshold
Least amount of change in a stimulus that will give rise to a change in sensation
JND?

22. Techniques of Psychophysics
Average Error
Subject adjusts a variable stimulus until it matches a constant
Over a number of trials, an average of the difference between constant and variable is taken
Constant Stimuli
Give 2 constant stimuli and have S judge whether one is more, less, or equal than the other
Limits
A stimulus is varied while an S observes it
How much change is required to give a correct judgment?
It was thought that there could be no measurement of the mind (i.e., no “psychology”)
Such things could not be measured
Fechner is credited for doing just that

23. Wilhelm Wundt ( )
Wundt takes hold of Fechner’s ideas and runs wild
Wundt calls Fechner the “Father of Psychology”
Why isn’t he credited for it, then?

24. Wundterkind Actually, a pretty bad student
Eventually caught on when he moved to Berlin and decided to becme a physician
Wanted to be a scientist, but also wanted to eat
Hated it
Changed his major to physiology and studied under Muller at U of Berlin

25. The Lab Opens Went to Heidelberg to study under Helmholtz
Hated it…and quit
In 1875 emerges again as a professor of Philosophy (?!?) at U of Leipzig
Establishes the first ever psychology lab in 1876
Full swing in 1879

26. Experimental Philosophy?
In 1881, started the Journal of Philosophical studies
Wanted Psychological Studies, but it was taken by a parapsychological organization
Renamed Psychological Studies in 1906

27. What Belongs in Wundt’s Lab?
Simple mental functions, sensations and perceptions
Higher-order stuff like learning and memory
Conditioned b language habits and cultural training
Anthropology, not psychology
“Cultural Psychology”
Study of the stages of human development as evident in laws, language, myth, art, customs and morals
Provided a division between experimental and social psychology

28. Experiencing Wundt: Voluntarism as the First Model of Psychology
Mediate(d)
Information other than that is provided by the elements of the object being observed
Interpretation of experience
Immediate
The experience itself
The mind actively and volitionally (with a will of its own) organizes immediate experiences into a mediate experience.
Not as a passive absorption (i.e., Titchner)
Volitional, therefore Voluntarism

29. The First Tool of Psychology: Introspection
A means to study experiences, thoughts, and feelings
Think inductive definition (Socrates), but controlled experimentally
The Rules:
Must know when the process will begin
Strained attention
Repeat observation several times
Conditions must be capable of variation
Usually dealt with size, intensity and duration of various physical stimuli

30. Wundt’s Plans for Psychology
Analyze conscious processes into their basic elements
Reductionism
Mendelev’s periodic table
Discover how elements are synthesized or organized
Apperception: the volitional organization of elements into a greater whole
Determine the laws that govern this organizati

31. The Standard Timetable of the Mind
Studied mostly vision and hearing
Studying the time it takes for someone to perceive, apperceive and react
So much individual difference, he abandoned the whole thing

32. Wundt and Emotions Got started by viewing a metronome
Found himself anticipating clicks
Tense at the silence, then relaxed at the click
Excited at higher rates
Subdued (even depressed) at lower rates
Feelings can be measured on a continuum of 3 dimensions
Pleasure/Displeasure
Excitement/Depression
Tension/Relaxation
Wundt clearly needed a hobby

33. Psychology Taking Germany by Storm
More like a drizzle…it didn’t catch on
Scholarly resistance against splitting psychology from philosophy
German government didn’t see any profit, thus no funding
No real practical application
Especially in the US, a rather pragmatic and struggling country

34. Wundtian Criticisms Introspection is subjective stuff
How were individual differences to be settled?
Wundt: With more training, the differences will be smoothed out

35. Questions? Thoughts?