Chapter 9: Early Approaches to Psychology

Question 1

Franz Clemens Brentano

Answer 1

Believed that introspection should be used to understand the functions of the mind rather than its elements. Brentano’s position came to be called act psychology. (See also Act psychology.)

Question 2

Franciscus Cornelius Donders

Answer 2

Used reaction time to measure the time it took to perform various mental acts

Question 3

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Answer 3

The first to study learning and memory experimentally

Question 4

Edmund Husserl

Answer 4

Called for a pure phenomenology that sought to discover the essence of subjective experience. (See also Pure phenomenology.)

Question 5

Oswald Külpe

Answer 5

Applied systematic, experimental introspection to the study of problem solving and found that some mental operations are imageless

Question 6

Carl Stumpf

Answer 6

Psychologist who was primarily interested in musical perception and who insisted that psychology study intact, meaningful mental experiences instead of searching for meaningless mental elements

Question 7

Edward Bradford Titchener

Answer 7

Created the school of structuralism. Unlike Wundt’s voluntarism, structuralism was much more in the tradition of empiricism-associationism

Question 8

Hans Vaihinger

Answer 8

Contended that because sensations are all that we can be certain of, all conclusions reached about so-called physical reality must be fictitious. Although fictions are false, they are nonetheless essential for societal living

Question 9

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt

Answer 9

The founder of experimental psychology as a separate discipline and of the school of voluntarism

Question 10

Act psychology

Answer 10

The name given to Brentano’s brand of psychology because it focused on mental operations or functions. Act psychology dealt with the interaction between mental processes and physical events

Question 11

Clever Hans phenomenon

Answer 11

The creation of apparently high-level intelligent feats by nonhuman animals by consciously or unconsciously furnishing them with subtle cues that guide their behavior

Question 12

Context theory of meaning

Answer 12

Titchener’s contention that a sensation is given meaning by the images it elicits. That is, for Titchener, meaning is determined by the law of contiguity

Question 13

Creative synthesis

Answer 13

The arrangement and rearrangement of mental elements that can result from apperception

Question 14

Elements of thought (Wundt)

Answer 14

According to Wundt and Titchener, the basic sensations from which more complex thoughts are derived

Question 15

Imageless thoughts (Külpe)

Answer 15

According to Külpe, the pure mental acts of, for example, judging and doubting, without those acts having any particular referents or images

Question 16

Intentionality

Answer 16

Concept proposed by Brentano, according to which mental acts always intend something. That is, mental acts embrace either some object in the physical world or some mental image (idea)

Question 17

Introspection

Answer 17

Reflection on one’s subjective experience, whether such reflection is directed toward the detection of the presence or absence of a sensation (as in the case of Wundt and Titchener) or toward the detection of complex thought processes (as in the cases of Brentano, Stumpf, Külpe, Husserl, and others)

Question 18

Mediate experience

Answer 18

Experience that is provided by various measuring devices and is therefore not immediate, direct experience

Question 19

Mental chronometry

Answer 19

The measurement of the time required to perform various mental acts

Question 20

Mental essences

Answer 20

According to Husserl, those universal, unchanging mental processes that characterize the mind and in terms of which we do commerce with the physical environment

Question 21

Mental set

Answer 21

A problem-solving strategy that can be induced by instructions or by experience and that is used without a person’s awareness

Question 22

Perception

Answer 22

Mental experience that occurs when sensations are given meaning by the memory of past experiences

Question 23

Phenomenological introspection

Answer 23

The type of introspective analysis that focuses on intact mental phenomena rather than on isolated mental elements

Question 24

Principle of contrasts (Wundt)

Answer 24

According to Wundt, the fact that experiences of one type often intensify opposite types of experiences, such as when eating something sour will make the subsequent eating of something sweet taste sweeter than it would otherwise

Question 25

Principle of the heterogony of ends (Wundt)

Answer 25

According to Wundt, the fact that goal-directed activity often causes experiences that modify the original motivational pattern

Question 26

Principle toward the development of opposites (Wundt)

Answer 26

According to Wundt, the tendency for prolonged experience of one type to create a mental desire for the opposite type of experience

Question 27

Pure phenomenology

Answer 27

The type of phenomenology proposed by Husserl, the purpose of which was to create a taxonomy of the mind. Husserl believed that before a science of psychology would be possible, we would first need to understand the essences of those mental processes in terms of which we understand and respond to the world

Question 28

Savings (method of measuring learning)

Answer 28

The difference between the time it originally takes to learn something and the time it takes to relearn it

Question 29

School

Answer 29

A group of scientists who share common assumptions, goals, problems, and methods

Question 30

Sensation

Answer 30

A basic mental experience that is triggered by an environmental stimulus

Question 31

Stimulus error

Answer 31

Letting past experience influence an introspective report

Question 32

Structuralism

Answer 32

The school of psychology founded by Titchener, the goal of which was to describe the structure of the mind

Question 33

Tri-dimensional theory of feeling

Answer 33

Wundt’s contention that feelings vary along three dimensions: pleasantness-unpleasantness, excitement-calm, and strain-relaxation

Question 34

Völkerpsychologie

Answer 34

Wundt’s 10-volume work, in which he investigated higher mental processes through historical analysis and naturalistic observation

Question 35

Voluntarism

Answer 35

The name given to Wundt’s school of psychology because of his belief that, through the process of apperception, individuals could direct their attention toward whatever they wished

Question 36

Will (Wundt)

Answer 36

According to Wundt, that aspect of humans that allows them to direct their attention anywhere they wish. Because of his emphasis on will, Wundt’s version of psychology was called voluntarism

Question 37

Würzburg school

Answer 37

A group of psychologists under the influence of Oswald Külpe at the University of Würzburg. Among other things, this group found that some thoughts occur without a specific referent (that is, they are imageless), the higher mental processes could be studied experimentally, and problems have motivational properties that persist until the problem is solved