Chapter 9 Flashcards
Describe Wilhelm Wundt’s experiment
Wilhelm Wundt’s Experiment (1862): Wundt conducted an experiment using a specialized apparatus, leading him to believe in the possibility of a fully- fledged discipline of psychology.
o Apparatus Used: Featured a pendulum, a scale, and a bell.
o Key Finding: It took roughly 1/10 of a second to shift attention between the sound of the bell and the pendulum’s position.
What were the implications of this experiment?
Central Mental Process Measurement: Wundt realized he was measuring the speed of a central mental process, marking a significant moment in experimental psychology.
Selective Attention and Voluntary Control: The experiment highlighted the speed of selective attention and introduced the concept of a central voluntary control process.
Distinction in Psychological Actions: Wundt emphasized the difference between voluntary and involuntary actions in his psychological framework.
What were Wundt’s theoretical developments?
Contributions to the Theory of Sense Perception (1862a): Wundt advocated for a new field of experimental psychology focused on human consciousness.
Principles of Physiological Psychology (1874/1904): A seminal work where Wundt aimed to establish experimental psychology.
o Clarification of ‘Physiological’: In Wundt’s context, ‘physiological’ paralleled ‘experimental’, differing from today’s association with biological correlates.
Describe Wundt’s school’s achievements
o Global Impact: By 1890, students globally were drawn to Leipzig to train under Wundt.
o Prolific Research Output: A significant volume of research emerged from Wundt’s laboratory, inspiring the establishment of similar labs worldwide, including in the U.S.
What is a school?
A school is a collective of individuals with shared assumptions, working on common problems and methods, akin to Kuhn’s concept of a paradigm.
Describe Wundt’s thought meter apparatus
Design and Function: The apparatus included a swinging pendulum, a calibrated scale, and a bell.
Observation: When the bell sounded, the pendulum was never at the anticipated positions (d or b) but always some distance away.
Conclusion: This discrepancy, about 1/10 of a second, led to the understanding that one could not simultaneously attend to both the pendulum’s position and the bell sound.
Describe voluntarism’s ideas and influences
Empirical and Rationalistic Blend: Wundt’s focus combined empirical methods with the German rationalistic tradition to understand consciousness.
Influences from Philosophers:
o Herbart and Kant: Wundt acknowledged a significant intellectual
debt to these philosophers.
o Leibniz’s Impact: Wundt felt a special affinity with Leibniz, as
evident from numerous references in his theoretical works.
Opposition to Materialism and Empiricism
Against Materialism: Wundt argued that materialistic psychology contradicted the very fact of consciousness, which couldn’t be derived from physical properties of matter.
Critique of Empiricism: He viewed empiricism as lacking in central volitional processes, which impart unique forms, qualities, or values beyond external stimulation or elemental events.
Pursuit of Understanding Consciousness
Goal: To comprehend not just the experience of consciousness but also the mental laws governing its dynamics.
Central Concept - Will:
o Will in Attention and Volition: Will, as reflected in attention and volition, was crucial for understanding major psychological problems.
o Human Decision in Perception: Wundt believed humans could decide what to attend to and thus perceive.
o Motivation in Behavior and Attention: He posited that behavior and selective attention are often purposeful and motivated.
Describe voluntarism’s tenets and how is it distinct from structuralism?
Definition and Focus: Voluntarism, named for its emphasis on will, choice, and purpose, was the first school of psychology, preceding structuralism.
Contrast with Structuralism: Structuralism, often mistakenly cited as the first school, was actually the approach of Edward Titchener, a student of Wundt, in the United States.
What did Wundt contribute to psych?
o Contributions to the Theory of Sense Perception (1862a): Laid the foundation for his lifelong psychological plan.
o Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology (1863): Explored both experimental psychology and naturalistic observation or historical analysis for higher mental processes.
Areas of Study: Included aesthetics, religious feelings, moral judgments, societal development, comparative religion, language, and will.
Völkerpsychologie: His monumental work spanning 10 volumes, encapsulating many themes from his earlier ‘Lectures’.
Establishment of Laboratory (1876): Gained the required space a year later, leading to teaching experimental psychology.
First Dedicated Psychology Laboratory (1879): His laboratory, termed the Institute for Experimental Psychology, marked the founding of the first lab exclusively for psychological research.
Who did Wundt disagree with?
Disagreements with Predecessors:
o Galileo, Comte, and Kant: Challenged their view that psychology could never be a science.
o Herbart: Disputed Herbart’s belief that psychology could be mathematical but not experimental.
Describe experimental psychology’s scope
Experimental Psychology’s Scope: Asserted that psychology had indeed become an experimental science, but with limitations.
o Basic Mental Processes: Experimentation was suitable for studying fundamental mental processes.
o Higher Mental Events: Deemed experimentation unsuitable for studying complex mental events, socio-cultural, and historical matters.
Describe Wundt’s methods
Experimental and Naturalistic Methods:
o For Basic Processes: Utilized experimental methods.
o For Complex Phenomena: Advocated for naturalistic observation.
Understanding Simple Before Complex: Emphasized the necessity of grasping simpler conscious processes to comprehend more complex ones.
o Foundational Rule in Psychology: Stressed that understanding simple phenomena is a prerequisite for understanding complex phenomena.
Describe Wundt’s goals for psych
Dual Objective: Aimed to understand both simple and complex psychological phenomena.
o Use of Experimentation: Appropriate for studying simpler aspects of the mind.
o Beyond Experimentation: For complex phenomena, alternative methods like naturalistic observation were essential.
Describe Wundt’s Approach to Mediate and Immediate Experience in Psychology
All Sciences Based on Experience: Wundt emphasized that all sciences, including psychology, are grounded in experience.
Type of Experience in Psychology: Differentiated between ‘mediate’ and ‘immediate’ experience as the basis for psychology.
Mediate vs. Immediate Experience
Mediate Experience:
o Used in Other Sciences: Examples include physics, where experience is mediated through devices like spectrometers or sound spectrographs.
o Characteristics: Involves data recorded and analyzed via instruments, leading to an indirect understanding of the physical world.
Immediate Experience:
o Central to Experimental Psychology: Focuses on direct human consciousness as it occurs, without mediation by devices.
What were the goals of experimental psychology?
- Discover Basic Mental Elements: Identify the fundamental components of thought.
- Understand Mental Combinations: Determine laws governing the combination of these elements into complex mental experiences.
Describe Wundt’s use of introspection
Methodological Diversity: Utilized various methods, including introspection, to study basic mental processes.
Experimental vs. Pure Introspection:
o Pure Introspection: Earlier, less structured self-observation used by philosophers.
o Experimental Introspection: Wundt’s scientifically rigorous approach, employing laboratory instruments for precise internal perception, akin to external perception.
Implementation in Experiments:
o Simplification: Often required only “yes” or “no” responses or pressing a telegraph key.
o Comparison with Physiology and Psychophysics: Similar to methods used by Helmholtz and others for studying sensations and thresholds.
Critique of Philosophical Introspection: Wundt was critical of less objective, philosophical uses of introspection.
How did Wundt contribute to sensory studies?
Replication of Physiological and Psychophysical Work: Conducted extensive studies on audition, vision, and sensory thresholds, building upon existing physiological and psychophysical research.
Describe Wundt’s sensations
- Definition: Occur when a sense organ is stimulated, and the impulse reaches the brain.
- Characteristics: Can be described in terms of modality (e.g., visual, auditory) and intensity.
- Within Modality: Further analysis of qualities such as hue and saturation for visual sensations, pitch and timbre for auditory sensations, and various taste characteristics.
Describe how Wundt viewed feelings
- Association with Sensations: Accompany all sensations.
- Tridimensional Theory of Feeling: Feelings can be described along three dimensions: pleasantness-unpleasantness, excitement-calm, and strain- relaxation.
What was perception, according to Wundt?
A passive process influenced by physical stimulation, anatomical makeup, and past experiences. It involves experiencing many elements simultaneously.
What is apperception, according to Wundt?
Active and voluntary attention to a part of the perceptual field. It’s under individual control and integral to Wundt’s concept of voluntarism.
Describe creative synthesis
o Critique of “Mental Chemistry”: Wundt opposed John Stuart Mill’s idea of passive idea synthesis.
o Active Role of Attention: Emphasized the active arrangement and rearrangement of elements by the individual’s will, leading to new, never- before-experienced arrangements.
o Unique to Psychology: Distinguished psychology from physical sciences, where phenomena like color are created by the individual’s cortex.
How did Wundt view the mind?
Contrary to Static Mind View: Wundt saw the mind as active, creative, dynamic, and volitional rather than just searching for cognitive and emotional elements.
Apperception in Mental Functioning: Essential for ordinary mental processes; loss of apperceptive ability could lead to disorganized thoughts, as in schizophrenia.
How did Wundt influence theories of mental illness?
Expansion by Emil Kraepelin: Wundt’s student Kraepelin expanded on the idea that schizophrenia could be a breakdown of attentional processes, citing dysfunctions in the “central control process.”
Describe mental chronometry in Wundt’s work
Wundt’s Associationism: Maintained a close link to traditional associationism in explaining the combination of sensations into perceptions.
Reaction Time in Psychological Study: In “Principles of Physiological Psychology,” Wundt posited that reaction time could complement introspection for studying the mind’s elemental contents and activities.
Describe Donder’s chronometry
Reaction Time Experiments: Donders, a Dutch physiologist, designed experiments to measure the time for mental acts using reaction times.
Experiment Design: Involved varying stimuli and responses to calculate the time required for mental discrimination and choice-making.
o Example: Subjects were presented with multiple stimuli but responded only to a designated one, allowing measurement of discrimination time.
The arrangement described for Donders’ experiment on reaction time can be represented as follows:
Stimuli Presented: A, B, C, D, E
Designated Response: Only respond to stimulus C
o In the context of the experiment, this setup required participants to discriminate among the stimuli (A, B, C, D, E) before responding. They were instructed to respond only when the specific stimulus (C in this case) was presented. The reaction time measured in this scenario would include the time taken not only to perceive the stimulus but also to identify it as the designated one (C) and then respond accordingly (marked as ‘c’). This method allowed Donders to calculate the time required for the mental act of discrimination by comparing it with simpler reaction times.
How did Wundt apply Donder’s methods
Adoption and Expansion: Wundt enthusiastically applied Donders’ methods,
aiming for a mental chronometry, or precise measurement of time for various mental
acts.
Contribution to Psychological Research: Early work in Wundt’s lab involved these reaction-time studies, marking a significant step in experimental psychology.
Describe why Wundt eventually abandoned mental chronometry
Variability in Reaction Times: Wundt, like Helmholtz, noted substantial variability in reaction times across studies, subjects, and conditions.
Complex Variables: The influence of sensory modalities, stimulus intensity, discrimination tasks, and practice led to a lack of consistent psychological “constants.”
Initial Decline in Use: These methods were largely set aside after Wundt, due to their complexities and inconsistencies.
In which field did mental chronometry make a comeback?
Cognitive psych
How did mental chronometry return?
Rediscovery in the 1960s: With the emergence of cognitive psychology, reaction-time procedures gained renewed popularity.
Continued Relevance: These methods remain widely used in the study of cognitive processes even today.
Describe Wundt’s Perspective on Psychological vs. Physical Causation
Creative Synthesis: Humans can willfully arrange thought elements in numerous configurations.
Unpredictability of Intentions: Intentions, being willfully created, elude prediction and understanding through physical causation.
o Example: Human actions like greeting a friend or writing a poem can’t be fully explained by mechanical or physiological laws but require understanding of intentions and goals.
Describe the principle of Heterogony of Ends
Unintended Consequences: Goal-directed activities often lead to unexpected results, altering motivational patterns.
o New Motives Arising: Unplanned influences from an action can become new motives, complicating or changing the original act of volition.
Describe principle of contrasts
Intensification by Opposition: Opposite experiences amplify each other,
e.g., sweetness feels intensified after sourness; pleasure is heightened following pain.
Describe the principle towards the development of opposites
Prolonged exposure to one type of
experience increases the tendency to seek its opposite.
o Individual and Historical Applications: This principle is applicable both in individual experiences and in historical trends, such as the shift from rationalism in the Enlightenment to the emphasis on emotions in Romanticism.
Describe Wundt’s mental laws
Characteristics: Unconscious, complex, and not directly knowable through introspection or experimentation.
2.Lawfulness of Products: Despite their complexity, these laws produce predictable outcomes.
Role of the Psychologist: Analogous to a historian, capable of deducing the laws of
mental activity only after the fact, inferring what must have happened based on events.
Describe Wundt’s historical approach to studying higher mental functions
Investigation Method: Used historical analysis and naturalistic observation for studying higher mental processes.
Application in Völkerpsychologie: This approach was central to his research in the latter part of his career.
Describe Volkerpsychologie
Focus on Cultural Products: Examined human culture through religion, social customs, myths, history, language, morals, art, and law.
Research Span: Dedicated the last 20 years of his life to this study, culminating in a 10-volume work.
Modern Relevance: His findings, particularly in language and social interaction, resonate with contemporary understandings.
Three-Stage Communication Process:
1.Speaker’s Apperception: Apperceives their general impression or idea.
2.Expression: Chooses words and sentences to convey the impression.
- Listener’s Apperception: Understands the speaker’s general impression.
Evidence: The retention of meaning over specific words used in communication.
