Wundt, Voluntarism, and Structuralism

Question 1

Entered the Gymnasium at 13, did poorly and had to repeat a year, but entered the university at 19.

He liked science but decided to study medicine so he could earn a living and study science at the same time, but drifted away from medicine toward pure science.

He spent one semester with Johannas Müller and returned to Heidelburg where he received his doctorate in 1856.

Answer 1

Wilhelm

Wundt

Question 2

Dozent (lecturer) at Heidelburg 1857-1864.

Assistant to Helmholtz in 1858 but found the work of training new students in the lab fundamentals to be exceptionally dreary and experiencing some friction with Helmholtz, he resigned after two years.

Basically he found the work tedious and dreary, which is ironic, and Helmholtz was aware of his disdain. Years later this faux pas cost Wundt the chair of psychology at Berlin….it went to Stumpf whose students founded Gestalt Psychology!

Answer 2

Wilhelm

Wundt

Question 3

Beiträge zur theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung (Contributions to a Theory of Sensory Perception) was published in parts between 1858 and 1862. It laid out the problems and methods for a science of the “new psychology” and described some of his experiments.

Answer 3

Wilhelm

Wundt

Question 4

His second book Vorlesunge uber die Menshen und Thierseele (Lectures on the Minds of Men and Animals) was published in 1863 and translated into English in 1893, and published continuously through 1920. It laid out more problems for psychology to address. (Very influential in U.S.)

Answer 4

Wilhelm

Wundt

Question 5

In 1864 he became an associate professor at Heidelberg where he stayed doing research in physiology until 1874. He implemented his conception of psychology as an experimental science during this period. While there, in 1867, he taught the first course in psychology, called physiological psychology.

Answer 5

Wilhelm

Wundt

Question 6

The course led to yet another influential book published between 1873 and 1874 entitled Grundzüge zur Physiologischen Psychologie (Physiological Psychology).

This was his most important work, published in 6 editions over the following 37 years. It established psychology as a science using the methods of physiology.

Answer 6

Wilhelm

Wundt

Question 7

He became a professor at Leipzig in 1875 where he stayed as a prodigious researcher and scholar for the next 45 years.

Answer 7

Wilhelm

Wundt

Question 8

He established the first experimental psychology laboratory at Leipzig in 1879.

This lab was the place to be for the next 30 years if you wanted to be an experimental psychologist.

Many early American psychologists came there to study.

Answer 8

Wilhelm

Wundt

Question 9

In 1881 he founded the journal Philosophische Studien (Philosophical Studies) as an outlet for the research in his area.

Answer 9

Wilhelm

Wundt

Question 10

In 1900, he introduced a ten volume series on Volkerpsychologie (Folk or social psychology) advocating the study of “Human mental development as manifest in language, art, myths, customs, laws and morals.”

Answer 10

Wilhelm

Wundt

Question 11

He argued that social psychology could never be experimental. Simple mental processes could be studied experimentally but not higher mental processes.

Answer 11

Wilhelm

Wundt

Question 12

During his career, he published 53,735 pages of original work. (2.2 pages per day from 1863-1920). One word every two minutes, 24/7 for his entire 68 year career.

At a rate of 60 pages per day, it would take you 2 1/2 years to read his complete works!

This defines “prolific writer”

Answer 12

Wilhelm

Wundt

Question 13

The focus of his early research was on the use of reaction time differentials to measure the additional mental time to process information (Called the complication)when two senses were pitted against each other. (Based on work by Donders, 1868 who based it on Bessel)

An Example:
Sa––––> Ra
Sa + Sb ––> Ra`
then Ra’ - Ra = Rt, the time for the mental process of complication.

Answer 13

Wilhelm

Wundt

Question 14

We have seen that this research was given impetus by Helmholtz measuring the speed of the nerve impulse and ….

Kinnebrook being fired due to the complication inherent in using the eye and ear method of Bradley to calibrate the clocks at the Greenwich Observatory.

Answer 14

Wilhelm

Wundt

Question 15

early founder of functionalism and Wundt’s first research assistant, conducted some ingenious reaction time experiments.

Answer 15

James Cattell

Question 16

Using lip activated sensors instead of telegraph keys, he measured the reaction time to speak letters vs. words.
He found no differences in complication time added by a whole word.
Therefore (accurately) concluded that words are perceived as a unit not read letter by letter.

Answer 16

James Cattell

Question 17

also gave Wundt a typewriter as a gift, an act of which William James opined was unfortunate because it…’condemned us all to have to read many more dreary pages of his [Wundt’s] work’….

Answer 17

James Cattell

Question 18

His early research with Ludwig Lange (1888) on the complication of attention to the stimulus or the response. and von Tchisch’s (1861) work with the problem of prior entry was an early focus.

Additionally he conducted many basic studies of psychophysics, attention span and word association.

The Complication Clock and Prior Entry

Answer 18

James Cattell

Question 19

1. Set the clock such that the bell rings when the pointer is at 5. Instruction sets and data below.
   (Neutal) “where is the pointer when the bell rings?”
   S hears the bell and reports the pointer is at 6.

(Visual) “concentrate on the pointer”
S hears the bell and reports the pointer is at 7.

(Auditory) “concentrate on the bell”
S reports the pointer is at 4 when the bell rings.

Answer 19

Prior Entry (von Tchisch , 1885)

Question 20

The delay of auditory processing in the visual set delays the auditory processing so the bell is “heard later” when the pointer is actually on 7.

In the auditory set, the visual processing is delayed such that when the bell rings the visual perception (late processing) is seeing 4.

How does all of this relate to Kinnebrook?

Answer 20

Prior Entry (von Tchisch , 1885)

Question 21

He found reaction time research produced highly variable results.
After reaction time, his research turned primarily toward analyzing the contents of conscious experience into it’s elements using immediate introspection.
This represented a clear blending of mental chemistry from J.S. Mills British empiricism and the methods of physiology.

Answer 21

Wilhelm

Wundt

Question 22

Wilhelm

Wundt’s Legacy

Answer 22

The origin of formal experimental psychology

Introduced refined and tested the method of introspection.

Provided a strong orthodoxy against which other approached could push (e.g., functionalism, gestalt etc.)

Question 23

Wundt’s Psychology- definition and goals

Answer 23

Definition: The scientific study of immediate [not mediated] conscious experience.

The Goals: Clear mental chemistry…
To analyze conscious experience into its elements.
Discover how the elements were connected
Determine the laws for the connection

Question 24

Rules of introspection

Answer 24

Observer must determine when the trial begins.

Observer must be in a state of strained attention.

Observer must be able to repeat the process.

Must provide for controlled manipulation and variation of the stimuli

Observer must be trained as an apprentice for at least 10,000 trials before their data can be used.

Question 25

The elements of conscious experience fall into two categories:

Answer 25

Sensations are objective, and classified by modality, duration, intensity.

Sensations are the same as images, except the image is generated by past experience (a thought) while the sensation is an immediate experience to external provocation.

Question 26

Feelings are..

Answer 26

Feelings are the subjective compliment of conscious experience and fall along three dimensions which sum to produce complex emotions and feelings.
excitation-depression
tension-relaxation
pleasure-displeasure)

Wundt came to this conclusion by analyzing feelings and emotions he experienced while listening to the beat of a metronome.

Question 27

Wundt’s Tri-dimensional Theory of Feeling

Answer 27

Pleasure paired with displeasure
Excitation paired with depression
strain paired with relaxation

Question 28

The Doctrine of Apperception:

Answer 28

For a unified experience we see the environment as a holistic experience not it’s elements.
Through creative synthesis, many elements may sum to produce something unique as a whole. (he borrowed J.S. Mills analogy of water’s).
“.. every psychic compound has characteristics which are beyond the mere sum of the elements….”

Question 29

Therefore, he clearly understood that the ultimate understanding of consciousness would require a synthetic approach (like gestalt psychology) but believed it was premature to study the complex processes before discovering the elements via analytic means.

Answer 29

doctrine of apperception

Question 30

doctrine of apperception

Answer 30

The doctrine also extends Leipniz’ concept of the transition from subliminal petit perceptions to apperception, but adds a volitional component (linked to Schopenhauer’s “wills”) which is the basis to the term voluntarism.
Note that Wundt later went beyond J.S. Mill’s conception by noting that creative synthesis adds something that is….”a truly new formation, not merely the result of a chemical like formation”….

Question 31

In experiments on …. Wundt’s students measured the number of letters or words that can be perceived in a brief presentation. Findings:
The same (4-6) for familiar words vs. letters.
Fewer for unfamiliar words vs. letters.
Conclusion that unfamilar words were processed as letters while familiar were processed as wholes. (Replicates Cattell’s findings)

Answer 31

apperception span,

Question 32

another of Wundt’s student used the doctrine of apperception and attention to develop his theory of dementia praecox (youthful insanity).

Answer 32

Emil Kraeplin

Question 33

believed schizophrenia involved flawed or erratic attentional scanning or focus. This concept was re-emergent in the 1960s models of schizophrenia as an attentional problem.

classified mental illness as schizophrenia (chemical imbalance) of manic depressive psychosis (metabolic defect)…. in the 19th century!!

Answer 33

Emil Kraeplin

Question 34

Wundt’s most influential American students

Answer 34

James Cattell- Early functionalist

Edward Scripture- Director of Yale Laboratory

Lightner Witmer- Director of 1st psychological clinic at the University of Pennsylvania

G. Stanley Hall- Early functionalist established Johns Hopkins Department

William James frequent visitor not student

Question 35

Wundt’s most influential non-American students

Answer 35

Vladimir Bekhterev- Russian reflexologist

Edward B. Titchener- British founder of American Structuralism at Cornell

Emil Kraeplin- German early mental illness work

Hugo Münsterberg- founder of industrial, forensic and applied psychology at Harvard

Oswald Külpe- founder of the Würzburg School of Act Psychology

Question 36

a German physicist. Proposed that the ability to transpose melodies in music and the recognition of geometric forms, abstracted across many dimensions represented universal qualities of sensation that were native and holistic.

Answer 36

Ernst Mach

Question 37

Replaced Herbart as the chair of philosophy.
His students included Brentano, Stumpf and G.E. Müller
Argued the nativist position on depth and space perception based on movement of the eye providing the dimension of spatiality.
The association of movement with visual experience leads to depth perception, but this capacity was native and activated by local signs in experience.

Answer 37

Rudolph Lotze

Question 38

After a degree in philosophy and ordination as a priest, he taught at Würzberg in 1866 as a professor of theology and philosophy.

He broke with the church on the doctrine of papal infallibility (1870).

In 1874 he published a book, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint and took an academic position at the University of Vienna.

His students included von Ehrenfels, Stumpf and Freud.

Answer 38

Franz Brentano

Question 39

represented a major break with Wundt on the empirically observable rather than experimental focus for psychology.
Observation is more important to science than experimentation.
Psychology should study the act of conscious experience not the contents.
The act of experiencing not the structure of experience should be the subject matter of psychology.
is credited with founding the act movement (which evolves into gestalt) .

Answer 39

Franz Brentano

Question 40

Followed the lead of Brentano in the act movement.

Answer 40

Carl Stumpf

Question 41

Argued that unbroken acts of conscious experience are the appropriate subject matter for psychology.

Elemental analysis renders conscious experience abstract and unnatural.

Favored a phenomenological approach of taking experience as it is, not breaking it down.

Answer 41

Carl Stumpf

Question 42

was made chair of psychology at Berlin over Wundt due to Helmholtz opposition to Wundt. (Be careful what you say about your mentors!).

His conception of an act psychology was passed on to his many students .

They included all the founders of the gestalt movement (Wertheimer, Koffka, Köhler) Lewin, and Husserl (see existentialism later).

Answer 42

Carl Stumpf

Question 43

bitter public feud with Wundt energized the zeitgeist for change from the well established analytic methodology of Wundt.
His act movement attracted Külpe from Wundt’s laboratory, and gave rise to the gestalt movement, albeit, indirectly.

Answer 43

Carl Stumpf

Question 44

Originally trained by Wundt at Leipzig, where he and Titchener were students and friends, and briefly with G.E. Müller at Göttengen.

Answer 44

Oswald Külpe

Question 45

He was an orthodox, hard core introspectionist following Wundt’s method rigorously.

He became dissatisfied with the incompleteness of introspective reports, feeling that there was an impalpable awareness of an underlying process that was crucial to conscious experience that never got reported and should be included as data.

Answer 45

Oswald Külpe

Question 46

Since Ebbinghaus had shown that memory, a higher mental process, had been studied experimentally, then so could thought processes.

Since Wundt had argued that higher mental processes could not be experimentally investigated, a bitter rift between the two began, with Wundt calling Külpe’s work mock experiments.

Answer 46

Oswald Külpe

Question 47

left Leipzig for Wurzberg, where he shifted to “systematic introspective” methodologies which allowed the study of the mediated processes that accompanied introspection.

While recognizing that the method was retrospective (Wundt’s criticism) he pointed out that all introspection was retrospective (speed of the nerve impulse!!)

Answer 47

Oswald Külpe

Question 48

He discovered unconscious predisposition in problem solving which influenced Freud, (consistent with the active mind tradition) and imageless thought which had no sensory/image elements (e.g., pure feelings of calm, tension etc.).
Thus he represents the first break away from the tradition of Wundt’s analytic focus to a more molar, act/process orientation, which became the Wurzberg school of psychology, and leads directly to gestalt psychology.

Answer 48

Oswald Külpe

Question 49

was Wundt’s most ardent and loyal follower. He moved to Cornell University establishing the Wundian tradition in America, but restricting American Structuralism to the introspective analysis of conscious experience into it’s elements.

Gone were the simple reaction time and experimental measurement of problem, solving genre of experiments that attested to Wundt’s broader vision of experimental psychology (voluntarism).

Answer 49

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 50

definition of psychology was:
“The analytic study of the generalized, adult, normal human mind through introspection”.
While this definition seems quite reasonable at first reading, note that it narrows the scope of psychology almost to the study of what he studied.
Note also how many sub disciplines of contemporary psychology would be excluded by this definition. List them:

Answer 50

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 51

titchener would have excluded all these branches of psychology

Answer 51

abnormal
  child
  social
  physiological
  learning, particularly animal learning
  industrial/organizational
  forensic

Question 52

further restricted his vision of psychology and thus his attractiveness to followers by ruling out all applied psychology. Titchener said,
“Applied science is a logical contradiction”.
In this clearly non-Baconian view, pure science was corrupted by the question of relevance and applied utility.

Answer 52

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 53

The subject matter of psychology should be experience as it is dependent on the experiencing person.
Physics, he argued should also use immediate experience (Wundt had said mediated experience for physics) but independent from the experiencing person.

Answer 53

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 54

For example psychologists are interested in the personal equation to understand the basis for the distortions in perception (dependent on experiencing individual).
Conversely, physicists are interested in reducing variability and increasing accuracy of judgmental observations (independent of the individual).
Allowing mediation to occur by labeling an object of introspection was a stimulus error.

Answer 54

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 55

He developed the reduction screen which was basically a peep hole through which the surface of an object could be scanned and the elemental experiences immediately reported without recognition of the object.
Once the object was recognized, the introspection was stopped.

Answer 55

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 56

Gestalt psychologists of course pointed out that these efforts to prevent the formation of the gestalt meant that the structuralists were missing the whole point (pun intended).
The formation of the gestalt (mediation) as a process was irresistible and the reductionism was unnatural.

Answer 56

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 57

Try imaging life with out the ability to generalize and categorize (even though this leads to stereotyping).
Your experience would be an unorganized jumble of the very sensory elements Titchener was trying to extract.
What color is the ceiling?
What color is the wall?

Answer 57

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 58

Unlike Wundt who argued for two categories of conscious experience, sensations and feelings, he argued for a third category, images. According to this view:

Sensations are the elements of perceptions

Images are the elements of ideas

Feelings are the elements of emotions

Answer 58

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 59

he rejected Wundt’s tri-dimensional theory for a single, hedonic axis)

To this end, his research had identified 44,000 sensations (elements of perception).

Imagine the complexity of such a periodic table of just these elements!!

Answer 59

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 60

Images and sensations differed qualitatively, and quantitatively.
Quality …….difference in kind
Attensity…..difference in clarity (ability to change attention)
Intensity……difference in strength
Protensity….difference in duration
Extensity …..difference in spatial fullness (extensiveness)
Images were viewed as less clear, vivid, intense, prolonged, and to some degree less extensive than sensations.

Answer 60

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 61

Perky 1910

Answer 61

A feel for the kind of research these positions generated can be obtained from a classic experiment by Perky (1910) which attempted to demonstrate that protensity could be affected by verbal instructions.
One group of subjects was told to imagine a banana on a blank screen which was gradually illuminated with a very dim image of a banana.
Since the subjects did not report seeing the banana “come on” they failed to detect the difference between a sensation and an image.

Question 62

Perky 1910

Answer 62

Conversely, a second group of subjects was instructed that a very dim image of a banana would be placed on the screen and they were to report the offset.
Their report of the offset was substantially delayed after the actual offset of the projection.
Again. This demonstrated that the subjects were not distinguishing the image from the sensation.

Question 63

It is somewhat ironic that his structural approach was growing at the turn of the century, (before functionalism, his earliest nemesis was organized).
He inadvertently augmented the emergence of functionalism as a organized movement by identifying his approach as a structural approach unlike the functionalistic approach (remember his disdain for applied science) that characterized American psychology.
Thus he named and gave focus to the movement that ultimately defeated his approach.

Answer 63

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 64

While Wundt’s voluntarism was under vigorous attack by Gestalt and Act psychology in Germany, Titchener’s structuralism was under attack too.

Gestalt psychology, first from Germany, and later from within the United States.

By the time Gestalt took hold in the United States. (the late 1920s) structuralism was already losing the field to attacks from functionalism and behaviorism.

In the U.S. it can be fairly said that it died of its own narrowness.

Answer 64

Gesalt attacks on titterer

Question 65

His most enduring legacies are methodology and Ph.D.s that filled the expanding psychology departments nationally.

Answer 65

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 66

Experimental Psychology (1905) was one of the best basic experimental methods (Psych 15) books for decades.

Answer 66

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 67

He is often attacked as sexist by contemporary (revisionist) historians whose account suffer from excessive presentism.

Answer 67

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 68

In fact, he trained 56 Ph.Ds one third of whom were women and several were Asian! He was a strong advocate of women in Ph.D. programs in psychology .
Perhaps his most influential students included:
Margaret Floy Washburn: an influential structuralist
Edwin Boring: a noted historian of psychology
J. Paul Guilford: founding psychometrician

Answer 68

Edward B.

Titchener

Question 69

received her Ph.D. with Titchener at Cornell in 1894.
She was his first Ph.D. student and he viewed her dissertation to be the best compared to all of his subsequent students.

She joined the faculty at Vassar College in 1903, where she stayed for the remainder of her career.

was elected president of the American Psychological Association in 1921

Answer 69

Margaret Floy

Washburn

Question 70

Although she was trained as a structuralist and continued this research, she became an influential early functionalist with her pioneering work in animal psychology .

Answer 70

Margaret Floy

Washburn

Question 71

Her book The Animal Mind (1908) explored the methodology to study animal consciousness indirectly via careful observation of animal behavior in a controlled experimental setting.

Answer 71

Margaret Floy

Washburn

Question 72

Her second book, Movement and Mental Imagery reconciled behaviorism and introspection (to the satisfaction of functionalists not behaviorists!).

Answer 72

Margaret Floy

Washburn