wundt Flashcards
who is known as the founder of modern psychology?
wilhelm wundt
what did wundt use to investigate the human mind?
introspection
what is introspection?
● when participants are asked to reflect on their own mental processes and describe them
● in wundt’s studies, participants presented with carefully controlled stimuli (e.g. visual images or auditory tones). then asked to provide a description of the inner processes they were experiencing as they looked at the image. made it possible to compare different participants reports in response to same stimuli, and so establish general theories about perception and other mental processes
what is an experiment that involved introspection?
exposing participants to sound of metronome and asking them to describe the subsequent sensations
describe the emergence of psychology as a science (6 marks)
● by beginning of 20th century introspection questioned by many, notably the behaviourist approach
● watson’s main problem with introspection - produced subjective data, so difficult to establish general principles. watson was also critical of introspections focus on private mental process and proposed a truly scientific psychology should restrict itself only to studying phenomena that can be observed and measured. thus, behaviourist approach was born, with it the emergence of psychology as a science
● cognitive revolution of 1960s - study of mental processes seen as legitimate and highly scientific area within psychology. cognitive psychologists likened mind to computer
● biological approach makes use of experimental data. researchers within area taken advantage of recent advances in technology to investigate physiological processes as they happen, including live activity in brain using sophisticated scanning techniques such as fMRI scans, EEG scans
