Lecture 14 - Wilhelm Wundt Flashcards
When was the birth of modern psychology? Who are the “ancestors” of psychology?
Wilhelm Wundt 1879 in Leipzig
“Great-grandfather” Aristotle
“Grandfather” Francis Galton
“Father” Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm M. Wundt 1832 -1920 Leipzig University Professor of Medicine and
Philosophy
Later professor of Psychology. The Founder of the modern Experimental
Psychology and the Cultural or Anthropological Psychology
CIRCUMSTANCES:
n The uniqueness of German universities (pure & applied)
n Tension within German philosophy
n Advances in:
- Psychophysiology ( J. Muller, H. von Helmholtz )
- Psychophysics ( H. Weber, G. Fechner ).
n A physician as a chair of philosophy dept. (Wundt)
Zeitgeist during Wundt? His biography
Romanticism, Cultural and Social Progress, Patriotism and Unification 1871
n 1810 William von Humboldt redesigned the Univ. of Berlin:
teaching + research + practical application
n Mass education for modern, cultivated citizens and research. Large
curriculum and practical application.
n State-supported education and research. Salaried professors
n Hierarchy of academic titles and positions.
n Professors highly respected; involved in politics, e.g., W. `Wundt as a
member of provincial parliament. Patriotic speeches…
n Born in Neckarau (near Mannheim). His father was a Lutheran pastor.
Mother’s family: intellectual elite scientists, physicians, politicians,
artists…
n High School (“Gymnasium”) in Heidelberg.
n Pre-med. Studies at Univ. of Tübingen.
n Medical studies at Univ. of Heidelberg.
n 1856 internship with Johannes Müller at University of Berlin
n 1857 back to Heidelberg: an instructor (Privatdozent) for Dept. of
Physiology. Teaching 4 students at home.
A Serious illness (malaria?)
1st publication on physiology.
n 1858 -1866 The Research and T.A. to Prof. H. von Helmholtz,
Heidelberg University
n Research & teaching: physiology and anthropology
n Lecturing on “Psychology as a Natural Science”.
n 1865 Unofficial laboratory in Heidelberg “Haus zum Riesen”
Chronometry; the use of a tachistoscope
n 1871 Tenured professorship.
n 1873/74 Two volumes of his ”Principles of Physiological Psychology”
“Grundzüge der Physiologischen Psychologie”.
n The House of the Giant
n (Haus zum Riesen) the building in Heidelberg, where Wundt
established his first unofficial laboratory in 1865. The building is still
there across from the Psychological Institute of Heidelberg University.
n 1874 Prof. and Chair of Philosophy Univ. of Zürich.
n 1874 An offer to teach philosophy at Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland)
University.
n 1875 Prof. & Chair of Philosophy, Univ. of Leipzig.
Lectures on physiological* psychology, supervision of
experiments (chronometry using the chronometer, and tachistoscope).
* Experimental
n 1879 One-room laboratory, called “The Institute for
Experimental Psychology” for research and teaching
n 1882 Financial support, moving to a new nine-room lab: the research
data
published in “Philosophical (formerly Psychological) Studies.“
n 1883 The Institute was officially listed in the University catalogue
n 1897 A new building designed for the Psychological Institute
(destroyed during the World War II)
1857 Privatdozent (a tutor for Univ. Heidelberg)
1858 T.A. to Helmholtz, Heidelberg. Lectures on physiology,
anthropology,
and psychology as a natural science
1974 Prof. in Zurich. 1875 Prof. in Leipzig.
1889 Rector of University. 1917 “Volkerpsychologie”
n His prominent students: W. James, E. Titchener, H. Münsterberg,
Emil Kraepelin
n The most popular professor in Europe. Ca. 24,000 students attended
his lectures.
He supervised 186 doctoral dissertations.
n 1889 served as Rector of Leipzig University.
n 1917 retired from the University but…published his
“Völkerpsychologie” (10 volumes).
Devices used in Wundt lab:
Eye Motion Demonstrator, Perimeter,
Tachistoscope, Plethysmograph
WUNDT’S BASIC IDEAS
Humans exist in the physical world of objects and the spiritual world of
culture.
n Psychology, dealing with both aspects of human existence, should be
divided into 2 sub-disciplines:
- Experimental psychology and - Cultural (anthropological) psychology
Naturwissenschaften & Geisteswissenschaften
n Experimental psychology
to focus on individual aspects of human experience such as sensation,
perception, emotions, attention, memory, thinking, awareness
n Cultural (anthropological) psychology
to focus on social aspects of human experience such as language,
meaning of symbols, intuition, arts, ethics, religion, customs, rituals, and
initiation into the tradition.
n Both sub-disciplines of psychology study the mental experience: the
conscious experience of the world and the motivated behaviours.
n “voluntarism”: the essential aspect of mentality is the intention
( “volition”).
Wundt and consciousness
The role of consciousness in motivated behaviours should be systematically
studied.
R. Descartes: if awareness then mental.
W. Wundt: If volition then mental.
n A starting point of experimental psychology is to:
- discover all the basic elements of the consciousness
(sensations, perceptions, thoughts, feelings)
- describe the laws by which they combine and
integrate within our minds.
n The higher phenomena of human consciousness (language, culture,
religion, arts) can never be studied experimentally but rather through
natural observations and historical analysis (Cultural / Anthropological
Psychology).
n The elements - meaningful units of the awareness
n What is the simplest element or unit of awareness (simple sensations,
e.g. red, hot, painful, or perceptions)?
n How many units can we hold at once?
When a picture of letters flashed on the screen for 0.09 sec 4-6 letters
were grasped only if they were random letters, but up to 17 letters were
grasped if they were arranged in a meaningful word, e.g.
neinzehnhundertzweiunddreizig which means 1932).
n In a linguistic expression, there is an outer phenomenon (form)
and an inner phenomenon (the meaning): in our perception, we
grasp and memorize the inner phenomenon of the verbal
expression (see later Noam Chomsky).
n - passive apperception = associations of a current
sensation with the existing elements: recognition
- active apperception = creative search for a new
meaning of new elements, original associations
and creative synthesis.
n In schizophrenia, there is a loss of control over the associations: they
are loose & chaotic. Attentional processes are weak: the loose
associations lead to bizarre conclusions.
n Wundt’s student Emil Kraepelin and the founder of modern psychiatry:
dementia praecox, relabelled by Eugen Bleuler as schizophrenia (later:
morbus Bleuleri)
Wundt’s three dimensions for the description of an
emotional state
- pleasantness/unpleasantness
- concentration/deconcentration
- excitement/calm
Immediate experience focuses on conscious experience
n In physical sciences, objects are observed via observation tools:
the perception is mediated by the tools.
n In psychology: mental processes are observed immediately by the
person who experiences them: they are immediate experiences
available via INTROSPECTION.
Experimental psychology to develop a
set of methods of self-observation
and measurement.
Introspection, understood as a
method of the trained
experimental self-observation.
-Well-trained subjects
- exposed to standard, repeatable
stimuli
- in controllable conditions
Wundt mental chronometry
“Mental chronometry”
The mental processing time involved in:
- Simple reactions to stimuli and
- Complex reactions requiring a decision: e.g.,
push the green button when the red light is on, and push the yellow
button when the blue light is on
* The mental processing time needed to grasp the meaning of unrelated
words vs. related words
n Wundt: Experimental psychology penetrates only the “outworks” of the
mind.
n Volkerpsychologie (cultural/anthropological psychology)
reaches the deepest layers of the human psyche.
n History of culture, arts, customs, mythology, religion, language,
philosophy and science per se contains a much larger range of
consciousness – the collective consciousness
Wundt’s contributions
n Contribution to psycholinguistics (outer and inner aspects of language.
n Establishing psychology as a scientific domain
n Making it a popular academic subject
n Attracting students and inspiring them
n Laboratory experimentation and measurement
n Dimensional approach to emotions
n Focus on the core issue: consciousness and motivated behaviour.
Introspection, observation
n Cultural anthropological psychology: comparative analysis, cross-
cultural search for meaning embedded in social verbal and nonverbal
codes
Edward Titchener 1867 - 1927
STRUCTURALISM. M.D. Oxford Univ.
Trained (2 years) in Leipzig by W. Wundt
At Cornell Univ. N.Y. teaching on structuralism, introspection, empathy
English translation of Wundt’s “Principles of Physiological Psychology”
Author of:
“Outlines of
Psychology”
1896 and
“Experimental
Psychology”,
1901.
THE QUEST FOR IDENTIFIABLE ELEMENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Seven sensory experiences:
visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, cutaneous,
kinesthetic and visceral
Further characterized in terms of:
- pressure, intensity, clearness, duration and
- emotional qualities, e.g. pleasurable, painful, annoying etc.
n 40,000 identifiable elements of consciousness, mostly related to the
senses of vision and audition.
n STRUCTURALISM - to study:
n the basic elements of mental experience such as sensation,
perception, images and memory traces
n the structure of associations between elements
n how these basic mental ideas give rise to such complex phenomena
as consciousness and the mind.
n Consciousness - all the mental experiences at a given moment
n The mind - all the mental experiences accumulated in the lifetime
