Unit #3 - Chapter #9

Question 1

What is the thought meter according to Wundt?

Answer 1

Used a clock and came to the determination that one could either attend to the position of the pendulum or the bell, but not both at the same time.

Question 2

What was Wundt’s goal?

Answer 2

To create a new field of experimental psychology that would uncover the facts of human consciousness.

Question 3

What is voluntarism according to Wundt?

Answer 3

The time it takes to switch attention voluntarily from one stimulus to another had been measured. Believed that humans can decide what to attend to, and what not to.

Question 4

What are the goals of psychology according to Wundt?

Answer 4

1. mediate and immediate experience: psychology was to be based on the immediate experience. To determine human consciousness as it is occurred.
2. experimental psychology goals: to discover the basic elements of thought, and to discover the laws by which mental elements combine into more complex mental experiences.

Question 5

Introspection according to Wundt:

Answer 5

Distinguished pure introspection - unstructured self-observation, and experimental introspection - scientifically respectable.

Question 6

What are the elements of thought according to Wundt?

Answer 6

Sensations (modality: visual, auditory, taste, intensity) (quality: color, richness of color, tone) and feelings.
Formulated the tridimensional theory of feeling: feelings can be described in terms of the degree they possess three attributes: pleasantness-unpleasantness, excitement-calm, and strain-relaxation.

Question 7

Perception, apperception, and creative synthesis according to Wundt:

Answer 7

3 influences of perception: physical stimulation present, anatomical makeup of the individual, and the individuals past experiences. The part of the perceptual field the individual attends to is apperceived.

Question 8

Mental Chronometry according to Wundt?

Answer 8

Conducted experiments involving how long it took a subject to respond to predetermined response. Could measure the time required to perform various mental acts. Wundt eventually abandoned this research.

Question 9

Psychological vs. Physical Causation - Wundt

Answer 9

Polar opposites.
Believed that because intentions are willfully created, they cannot be predicted or understood in terms of physical causation.

Question 10

Volkerpsychologie

Answer 10

The 10 volumes of work Wundt did. Emphasized the study of language.
3 stages of verbal communication:
1. The speaker must apperceive their own general impression.
2. Speaker must choose words and sentence structures to express general impression.
3. Listener, after hearing the words and sentences, must apperceive the speakers general impression.

Question 11

What was Titchener’s behavior towards women?

Answer 11

Women were excluded, and the ban lasted until after his death.
He believed that women may be offended by the cigar smoking at the meetings.

Question 12

Structuralism goals and methods according to Titchener

Answer 12

Believed that psychology should study consciousness.
Goal was to determine the “what, how, and why of mental life”.
Sought a periodic table for the mental elements.

Question 13

Introspection according to Titchener

Answer 13

His subjects had to search for the elemental ingredients of their experiences. Job was to describe the basic, raw, elemental experiences from the complex cognitive experiences.

Question 14

Mental Elements according to Titchener?

Answer 14

40,000 identifiable sensations.
Argued that feelings occur in one dimension.

Question 15

What was the decline of structuralism?

Answer 15

Unreliability of introspection, excluded several developments that researchers outside of school were showing to be important, not interested in abnormal behavior.

Question 16

What was Franz’s work in Psychology?

Answer 16

Important thing about the mind was what it did.
Act psychology - included judging, recalling, expecting, inferring, doubting, loving, hating, and hoping.

Question 17

Stumpf’s work in Psychology

Answer 17

Experimental psychologist.
Concerned with questions or emotional and perceptual psychology, scientific theory, research methodology, and the theory of evolution.
Led to Gestalt psychology.

Question 18

Clever Hans relation to Stumpf

Answer 18

Clever was a horse and could correctly solve arithmetic problems by tapping his hoof or shaking his head the appropriate number of times.
Clever was found to be responding to subtle cues.

Question 19

Wurzburg School

Answer 19

Mental Set - it was found that focusing subjects on a particular problem created a determining tendency that persisted until the problem was solved.
Operated on an unconscious level.