Ch 4 (Exam 1) Flashcards
(25 cards)
Wilhelm Wundt
- founder of psychology as an independent science
- associated with University of Leipzig
- psychology divided into experimental and social
voluntarism
- school of Wilhelm Wundt
- based on notion of apperception
- emphasis on mind’s capacity to organize mental contents into higher-level thought processes
introspection
- reflection on one’s subjective experience
apperception
- an active process by which the mind organizes elements of experience to create a wholeness of experience
- Wundt
- can’t be reduced to mechanistic causes
Hermann Ebbinghaus
- first to conduct experimental research on learning and memory
Franz Brentano
- founder of act psychology
act(ivity) psychology
- school that focuses on mental activity rather than mental content
phenomenology
- method of introspection
- focuses on intact meaningful experience
Oswald Kulpe
- studied higher mental processes via systematic experimental introspection
- founded the Wurzburg school
systematic experimental
- method of introspection
- uses retrospection about mental experience of performing a task
imageless thought
- a mental action with no particular referent
- Oswald Kulpe
- controversy
Consider a simple example: a person’s conscious response to a card on which the digit 1 has been printed immediately above the digit 2. According to Wundt, if the stimulus is apperceived
a) it will elicit the idea most strongly associated with it in the past— perhaps the number “three” since the stimulus resembles an elementary arithmetic problem.
This straightforward reaction has been fully determined by past experience.
b) a host of new and “creative” responses may occur: the idea of “minus one,”perhaps, or “twelve,” “twenty-one,” notions of a secret code or cipher, or anything else depending on the will and imagination of the subject.
c) Neither a nor b; “apperceived” means not perceived at all.
b) a host of new and “creative” responses may occur: the idea of “minus one,”perhaps, or “twelve,” “twenty-one,” notions of a secret code or cipher, or anything else depending on the will and imagination of the subject.
what year did Wundt open his lab?
- 1879
what year did the first US lab open?
- 1883
Wundt’s view on experimentation
- yes for simple mental functions (sensation, perception)
- no for higher mental processes (learning, memory)
- b/c higher mental processes contained language and other cultural training
Wundt’s experimental psychology
- introspective observation of the world of ideas
- took issue with the passive mind, creative synthesis instead
perception (Wundt)
- respond to stimulus automatically, mechanically, and thoughtlessly
- experiences and associations
what is the subject matter of experimental psych?
- immediate conscious experience
what are the goals of experimental psych (2)?
- discover basic elements of consciousness
- discover laws by which mental elements combine into more complex mental experiences
elements of consciousness
- sensations: modality, intensity, duration
- feelings: subjective complements of sensations
mediate experience
- focused on “object of experience”
- primary qualities
- linked to outer perception
immediate experience
- secondary qualities
- focusing on “experiencing subject”
- linked to inner perception
Wundt’s introspection
- examination of one’s mental state under precise experimental control
- data is meaningful if replicable
- quantitative
why isn’t Fechner considered the founder of modern psych?
- he wasn’t trying to found a new science
