Wilhelm Wundt & The Birth of Experimental Psychology Flashcards
What century was Wundt born in?
1800 (1832 to be exact).
What was the Thought Meter (Wundt)?
Thought Meter: Perception timing is different in different sense modalities.
There is a creative combination of apperceived experiences.
Wundt also believed in focussing on immediate experience and Folk Psychology.
What is Folk Psychology?
Things that can’t be studied experimentally.
Name three of the methods in Wundt’s institute.
Psychophysics (e.g. graphical mapping). Mental chronometry (e.g. reaction times like the Hipp's chronoscope). Self-observation of introspection.
What was James Cattell interested in?
Mental chronometry of words and letters.
Created a new apparatus for reaction time studies.
Explain the social organisation of self-observation in Wundt’s laboratory.
Experimenter = lowest status (usually students). Subject = highest status (sometimes it was Wundt himself!).
Why is it a weakness that Wundt was the subject of his own studies?
This is a very subjective way of studying psychology.
Name three of Wundt’s followers.
Hermann Ebbinghaus.
Edward Tichener.
Oswald Kulpe.
What is the Forgetting Curve (Ebbinghaus)?
Forgetting slows down over time. Extends psychophysics to a higher mental function.
Why was Tichener important to Wundt’s work?
Tichener introduced Wundt’s ideas (e.g. the introspective method) to the US.
Why is Oswald Kulpe relevant?
Developed the Wurzburg School (a school dedicated to the formation and development of concepts).
Debated with Wundt about imageless thoughts + introspection.
What is Gestalt psychology?
Gestalt psychology attempts to understand the ability to acquire and maintain meaningful perceptions in a chaotic world.
What is the Phi Phenomenon (Max Wertheimer)?
The optical illusion where when stationary objects are shown in rapid succession they appear to be moving in a fluid motion (we can no longer perceive them separately).
Where was Gestalt psychology originally developed?
Berlin, 1912.
What is one of the most famous ideas in Gestalt psychology?
“The whole is different (originally ‘something else’) than the sum of the parts.”
