Lecture 4 Flashcards
What is Wndt’s Legacy in Psychology?
Wundt’s Legacy -65 year career -Head of the best lab in the world -Wrote a lot (50000 pages) BUT -No influential theories or seminal findings His writing was hard to understand and contradictory Relatively small impact on psychology.
Who is Titchner and is he considered important today?
How did his Introspection differ from Wundt’s?
Considered important historically but his work is not influential today.
Taught at Cornell and was the head of the structuralist school. He thought experimental psychology’s goal was to identify the basic elements that made up consciousness.
Wundt argued against this. Titchener presented himself as the student of Wundt but in reality, was against Wundt’s ideas. Wundt felt that consciousness could not be broken down. Dimensions of consciousness do not exist without each other. Feelings cannot exist without sensations.
Titchener does not agree. Titchener is really in the associationism camp. Like Locke – all of our thoughts can be decomposed into simple ideas and then back to experience. Titchener thinks you can go in the other direction. Complex thought to experience which should be at the base.
What is Titchener using introspection for?
Did Titchner agree with Kant?
Titchener thinks that via introspection, we can find the basic elements of consciousness and the mind.
Titchener opposes Kant because he says that inner observation can be separated and combined at will.
What is Structuralism?
What does introspection come up with?
What is the purpose of introspection for a structuralist?
Structuralism: Decomposing the mind into its component parts. Draws an analogy with anatomy and physiology – the same way you need to understand the structure of the eye before studying it, you need to do this for the mind before studying what the mind is for.
Comes up with very weird, exotic stuff. General idea is to trace everything back to experiences.
What does Titchener say TRAINED introspectors can do?
What is the stimulus error?
To avoid it, what do you need?
According to him, trained introspection can reach conclusions that can be considered scientific.
This training allows people to avoid the stimulus error: describing the object rather than one’s experience of the object. Judging the stimulus outside of you but not focusing on your own experience if the stimulus.
To avoid this error, you require a specialised vocabulary. Should be transparent, clear what it means. Not too familiar as these bring with them associations but not so unfamiliar that their assimilation would be difficult. Hard to read from the present perspective, proved to be a dead end.
Titchener and vocabulary
He listed thousands od sensory experience, 30k visual, 11k auditory, 4 taste, 3 sensations od the digestive tract and died before he figured out olfaction.
He then tried to make a more parsimonious theory but died before this.
How did Boring carrry on his work and why did this give Titchener a good place in th ehistory of psychology?
His most famous student, Boring carried on. He was also the first ever historian of psychology and so gave Titchener a nice place in the history of psychology.
Boring tried to simplify the theory. 4 Main dimensions of consciousness. Quality – the 43k e.g. quality. Intensity extensity (space) and propensity (duration).
Why did Titchener want to come to McGill?
Titchener wanted to teach in the Empire. No psych labs in the UK. Cornell was the best he could do. Tried to grab a slot at McGill.
What was Tithener’s impact on psycholgy?
limited impact on psychology? – mostly he features as a punching bag for those that come later
Who was Oswald Kulpe?
Oswald Kulpe - Student of Wundt and founder of the “Würzburg School,” who promoted introspective experiments on several of the higher processes, thus contradicting Wundt’s view that this was not possible.
What did the Würzburg Schools say about introspection?
- introspection did not intuitively give rise to the experience of elementary sensations.
- Wurzburg school: there are a lot of things happening in our mind that we cannot report on. people do weird associations without knowing why
(we have limited awareness of the causes of the contents of our minds).
- « imageless » thoughts.
How did Kulpe disagree with Wundt?
Wundt thought introspection could only be done for basic processes – higher = analyse culture.
Kulpe thought that this could be done retrospectively
What is retrospection and how does it compare to introspection?
What are imageless thoughts?
What were these the first example of?
Retrospection vs introspection: introspection interferes with the process that is being observed. Too hard to do a process while doing introspection. But maybe can do it retrospectively.
Kulpe found that many thought processes were hard to describe. E.g., familiarity, you don’t remember where you know someone from but they FEEL familiar.
He calls these Imageless thoughts: many thought processes are hard to describe, e.g. recognition without recollection.
Might be the first realisation of unconscious properties that impact on behaviour.
What was directed association and what did it uncover?
Directed association—Studies conducted by Watt, a student of Külpe, and Ach in which subjects were asked to associate to stimulus words in a highly specific, rather than “free,” manner. Word association that was not free. People had to name the super and supra ordinate groups. When participates did this, after a while it became easy, and people do not need to think about it. It has become automatic. He called these implementation of these unconscious rules, mental sets
What is mental sets and who came up with them?
Mental sets—The idea put forth by Ach that introspective instructions do not consciously enter into the subjects’ associational processes but rather predetermine them in particular directions before the experiments begin: a lot of thought is unconscious. Once you get into the habit, it is unconscious. Most of the time we interact with the world, we use these mental sets.
What was Titchener’s response to the idea of mental sets?
- Titchener replies that trained individual can become aware of these thoughts (but then problem of demand characteristics). If you are trained, you can do this. In other words, this might not ever work for anybody else but him.
What did Functionalists think of Titchener?
/Functionalists like James were studying more interesting questions such as: « how could psychology advance the conditions of individuals and of the American society ». This is very applicable stuff.
- By contrast, in his textbook An Outline of Psychology (1896), Titchener puts forward a list of more than 44,000 elemental qualities of conscious experience.
Did the Gestalt Psychologists think Titchener was cool?
Who were the main proponents?
Failed to convince the researchers who remained interested in the contents of consciousness and perception, but he did not convince them. This was mostly the gestalt psychologists.
- They believed that it doesn’t make sense to try to understand the human mind by trying to break it down to its « atoms », it would be like trying to understand a chord by the sum of its individual tones.
- Gestalt Psychology: « the whole is different from the sum of its parts »
- Main proponents were the Germans Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), Kurt Koffka (1886-1941), and Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967). Also included the Danish Edgar Rubin (!886-1951), and the Swede Gunnar Johansson (1911-1998).
William James
Who was he?
What book did he write?
Was he a program builder?
Taught the first American university course on the new scientific psychology at Harvard.
Considered the father of American Psychology. Probably not of all psychology as he was inspired by Wundt to consider psychology am science.
-To go along with this course, he decides to write a textbook; 1878-1890: The Principles of Psychology
-He had to rewrite chapters as they progressed and writing this took ages.
-Very well written and comprehensive for this time period.
-More a communicator than a program builder. Did not do much research, graduated a few students and then later, he quit psychology all together and went into philosophy.
Did Wundt like James?
Wundt was not impressed: « It is literature, it is beautiful, but it is not psychology » James (about Wundt’s psychology: « It could hardly have arisen in a country whose natives could be bored… There is little of the grand style - - - - about these new prism, pendulum, and chronograph-philosophers. They mean business, not chivalry » - the German way of approaching psychology is boring according to James.
In James’ time, what is the difference between European and American psychology?
-Psychology in America is more personal and focused on the individual, and more practical than theoretical in its goals. Which is a big advantage.
James’ background
Did he belive in Free will?
Whgat philosphy did he found?
- He was more into physiology
- Studied medicine but was not happy – he was prone to recurrent depression
- Went specimen hunting in Brazil to improve his mood
- Feels like his family is oppressive – moves to Germany: he can get near to physiologists and escapes family
- Reads Wundt’s paper and realises that psychology can be a science
- Physiological Psychology ». 1870: In the context of an “existential crisis”- probably depression, he decides to believe in free will, even though the scientists he has interacted with teach that this is not so
- And manages to build a habit of thinking more positive thoughts. You can see this as positive psychology. Habits become an important aspect of his psychology
- Since « free will » seemed a useful concept in personal life, he would accept it as true there; and determinism, useful scientifically, would be equally true when he functioned as a scientist.
- I.e., scientifically free will seems impossible but its useful for me so when im working, there is none but when I am outside of home, I will believe in it.
- Will later found pragmatism in philosophy (> 1900) There are no absolute truths, what determines the value if a truth is their practical impact
How good at experiments was James?
James may have never have ran an experiment. He only ever really did his great book. Chapters on many things that are really still present in psychology.
What did James write in his book about the methdology of psychology at the time?
- Chapter 1 The Methods and Snares of Psychology
- Snares – considered Wundt’s methodology boring
- Although it has limitations, introspection is still the best available method.
- He uses this more open mindedly than Wundt, more in the “armchair style” that Wundt did not like.
- Precursor to phenomenology: not « imposing a set of prior categories on experience », but « by observing experience itself and letting experience dictate the categories »
- In the methods section, says Minds are objects in the natural world – no dualism: there is a correspondence between « the succession of states of consciousness and the succession of total brain processes ». More kind of causal reductionism – events caused by activity in the brain.
- Didn’t like experimental methods, considered all the psychology experiments like time perception, mental chronology etc. to be extremely boring (especially German experiments).
- Wundt used constrained introspection with prior categories. James says you should let it go and be open.
- He was extremely open: spiritism
- Also open to comparing between things like other species – a lot of American functionalism is due to Darwin
- James does not see a clear break between humans and animals, thought animals had some of our processes
James’ most famous chapter
How is it that we consider ourselves the same entity in the morning?
- Famous chapter – James is a master of metaphors
- Metaphors in psychology are often more than a way of writing, they allow use to understand abstract concepts more clearly
- Hume used the metaphor of a theater play – James agrees
- A stream vs a train, you cannot break a stream into parts
- Since Heraclitus, it has the association of looking like a unified thing even though actually, everything changes
- « Every thought tends to be a part of a personal consciousness » - every thought is my thought and not the thought of someone else
- « Within each personal consciousness thought is always changing », « no state once gone can recur and be identical with what it was before » -> There cannot be two identical experiences
- Attacking Titchener and structuralism. If everything changes then there are no stable blocks to analyse
- our experience of a certain thing is never the same on two different occasions! « For an identical sensation to recur it would have to occur the second time in an unmodified brain » -> It is foolish to look for elementary, recurrent units of consciousness
- « Within each personal consciousness thought is sensibly continuous » -> Consciousness occurs « without breach, crack, or division » -> Every moment seems follows the other in a seamless fashion
- Still a feeling of continuity when we wake up in the morning. -> Consciousness doesn’t have well-defined edges i.e., We wake up, remember how we went to sleep and then connect the dots
- We always wake up as ourselves, there is a sense of continuity
- Consciousness does not have well defined edges
Consciousness:
Transitive and intransitive parts
- Consciousness substantive parts and transitive parts
- Substantive parts are concrete i.e., (a) imagine being at home and (b) imagine Christmas holidays
- Transitive parts are the bits in between those thoughts
- Something must have happened to allow this shift between thoughts but introspectively, we can’t see them
- Probably unconscious (but psychology was not there yet)
- When you are looking for a word on the tip of your tongue, if you are presented other words, you can say that these are not the word you want so what is the weird experience of knowing something you do not know? This is on the fringes of consciousness.
James: Intentionality
Consciousness always appears to deal with objects independent of itself »
• -> intentionality is the technical term for this or « aboutness » of consciousness ->
• We are always conscious of stuff, not consciousness itself
• The object of attention is experienced as an « undivided state of consciousness » i.e., you cannot divide consciousness like Titchener does
• “I am the same I that I was yesterday” – is in reality one idea – even though there are different moments to this thought, it is one thought. This is unity of consciousness.
For James, how does attention relate to conscioussness?
- Consciousness is always about something but there is a choice about what that object is and this choice Is attentional
- We pay only attention to a fraction of what we can be aware of
- This is why he put attention centrally in psychology
James Langley theory of emotion
Does Cannon-Bard’s theory agree?
Later in the cognitive revolution, does Schafer agree?
Who started this debate and was it their biggest contribution to the actual field of psychology?
- Contrary to intuition
- Intuition says we feel something (like fear) and then we express it (like I run)
- James-Lange says the other way around
- In reality expression happens first and then you experience the emotion as you experience yourself expressing it
- Cannon-Bard says there is no order, the brain does both processes. They come in parallel with no causal order
- If someone was paralysed, they cannot express emotions, but they feel them
- Schacter – cognitive revolution
- Appraisals
- See threat, have an emotional response, appraise it, has a feeling
James started the debate about the order of events that happen when we experience an emotion. Still going on. This is his biggest contribution to psychology
James on WILL
- Deciding that he had free will got him out of his depression so personally importance
- Is effortful attention: When you put effort into doing something (do something hard) that is when you feel free will the most
- The main question of the chapter is whether the will is mechanistically determined (Scientific Psychology) -> Or whether it introduces certain non-mechanistic and unpredictable influence of its own (personal experience).
- Science must be founded on true determinism: the causes of phenomena can be found entirely in the material world and so there cannot be free will i.e., you are doing something because of something. If this is so, you are doomed to believe that there cannot be free will
- BUT free will impacted on his life. As he is a pragmatist, he says that for science, free will does not help (like with Descartes, it just makes things more complex)
- But in his own life, he used it and had it
James’ later career
Did he like psychology?
What else did he do?
Later Career: Psychology is a « nasty little subject; … all one cares to know lies outside » His conclusion is grim and is not what matters to him
• - He was chair of Psychology at Harvard, in 1892: He brings German psychologist, and former Wundt student Hugo Munsterberg to replace him at Harvard.
• Goes on to do many things
• - Interested in research on spiritism
• - Founds pragmatism with Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914): He says that scientific knowledge can never be entirely certain, but only subject to varying degree of « pragmatic belief »
• This is pretty like the sophists from Greece, certain beliefs are more practical than others
• - Darwinian perspective: evolution and adaptiveness of ideas
• – ideas may gain or loose their value depending on their « environments » and « competitors ».
• What is important is not what is true but what is useful
• - Believing in free will in your own personal life is pragmatically « correct » because it « works »
Charles Darwin
- Organisms have evolved to fulfil certain functions
- He was trying to explain the mechanisms that drive the diversity of lifeforms
- Aristotle worked on this – taxonomy and 4 causes
- Context is different. Began with Carolus Linnaeus’ classification system
- Very hierarchal and structured. We still mostly use it!
- He wants to know what causes it
Lamark and Lamarkian selection
- Lamarck: Organisms can inherit acquired characteristics: e.g., all its life a giraffe tried to reach leaves. Because it is trying to reach long leaves, its neck gets longer over time it acquires this characteristic
- This trait gets passed down to offspring
- Intuitive but does not work! Never able to observe the lengthening of a neck throughout the lifetime
- Lamarckian selection
How did the work of Thomas Malthus influence Darwin?
How?
- One of the determining factor of Darwin’s theory was the book published by Thomas Malthus a political economist: main thesis= humans are doomed to live in poverty, as wealth increases so does population until it exceeds capacity and then there is poverty increase and an event that happens like famine or war that brings down the population
- Call these Malthusian catastrophes
- It is the existence in the world of limited resources and the struggle that comes from it that drives the selection process
- Eventually publishes the origin of species
- He proposes evolution is caused by blind variation
- Traits vary randomly and then are selectively retained due to the environmental pressure
- Long necked giraffes survive better
Did Darwin think survival of the fittest would affect psychology?
• Darwin realised his theory would affect psychology – the same way that physical traits are chosen, so could mental traits
The Descent of man
Whjat does it say about humans and animals?
- The Descent of man and Selection in Relation to Sex
- Humans have descended from animals
- No sharp divide between humans and animals – incremental difference
- Dogs can show many human traits
- Very different from Descartes
Did Darwin cause racism?
- Racism comes
- Not from Darwin but from people that read and interpreted his work
- Realised that there was only one species of human. He beloved in monogenesis. Contrasted to polygenetic views of the time
- Darwin was anti slavery
- He was also anbiguous on race, might be intellectual superiority of Nordic races – the harsher climates like lack of food in winter are a stronger environmental pressure to select traits like cleverness. Maybe this caused intellectual Nordic superiority
Darwin and • sexual selection, variation hypothesis,
- Darwin was much clearer in his views about sexual differences – when you observe other species, there is striking differences between males and females. Male peacocks only there to seduce females
- So, there is sexual selection and pressures resulting from this
- When he applies this to humans
- His ideas closely matched common Victorian ideas – sexes fundamentally different but complementary
- Women = mothers – empathetic and maternal
- Men = breadwinners – competitive and assertive
- Men have higher eminence and are more intellectually capable, according to Drawing
- Sexual selection is the gradual selection and evolutions of characteristics that are specifically favourable for reproductive success
The variation hypothesis and IQ
- Variation hypothesis – more variability in height etc. in men than women (many traits including IQ). For him, because of this selection process; men have to compete.
- This is true
- BUT it is a very slight difference and might not even matter.
SImon Baron COhen and the variation hypothesis?
- Simon Baron-Cohen more recently used this line of thinking
- Autism – extreme male brain or empathizing-systemizing theory
- More variability in men, increase in variability may cause autism but also possibly genius in a domain. The biology of men can create genius or autism – the variation is significant
- New one – empathizing is on one side of the spectrum and on the other systemizing – could be a male female split
- The observations are the same – there IS more variability ion men and women but the interpretations can vary
The expression of the emotions in Man and animals.
Who wrote this and was it important?
• Around this time, the idea of the expression of emotions came from Ekman
The expressions of the emotions of man and animals
• Human emotions are inherited and evolved for specific purposes
• E.g., fear = escape from predator
• Evidence, at least some emotions are universal
• Ekman says fear, anger, sadness, disgust, sad, and surprise
• Got a lot of criticism because of its association to the theory of evolution and its use in racism subsequently even though he made no racist statements. Guilty by association to a theory that had been used in racist ways
Was Darwin nurture or nature?
How did he influence the James-Langue theory of emotions?
- Darwin was all nature, no nurture
- James-Langue theory of emotions: if emotions are hard wired, it makes sense that we would manifest these emotions before we experience them. James was very inspired by Darwin.
