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HS-04-WundtGermanPsych1week3.pptxContemporary Issues: Historical Framework of Contemporary Psychology
Unit 4
Wundt & German Psychology
Wissenschaft
19th century Germany Higher Education Model
von Humboldt, U of Berlin 1809
Prior (11-13th) lectures by prominent scholar
Some research (e.g., Newton – but on own time)
Scholarship via ‘learned societies’ e.g., Royal Society of London
Systematic Research/Scholarship
science, learning, knowledge, & scholarship
dynamic process discoverable for oneself
rather than something that is handed down
Emphasis on research & research-based degrees
In USA
Johns Hopkins University (1876), 1st Amer Research Univ
Clark U (1889), Stanford U (1891), U of Chicago (1892)
Experimental Psychology: Psychophysics
Johann Herbart (1776-1833)
(Kant: science of psychology is impossible)
NOTE: BORN 1776
Psychology was mathematical, empirical, scientific
e.g., assign diff weights to ideas of diff importance
ignored biology & experimentation
Apperceptive mass (remember Leibniz)
Integrated cluster of ideas at the forefront of Consciousness
Unrelated ideas “repressed”; dropped into Unconscious
Threshold/Limen:
limit below which an idea will be out of consciousness, and conversely, in consciousness when above it.
Ernst Weber (1795-1878)
Physiologist at Leipzig (Wundt here later)
Interest in Touch (TPK)
Research on two-point thresholds
Mapping skin sensitivity
Absolute Threshold: detect stim 50% of time
Difference Threshold
Weber’s Law:
jnd = just noticeable difference between weights
e.g., 30g & 33g are JND (10%)
THEN 60g & 63g will not be noticeably different
must be 60g and 66g
Gustav Fechner (1801-1889)
Biologist, Prof of Physics at Leipzig (1834)
1839 Eye injury; withdrew for 3 years
Meditations: everything is endowed with a soul
1850: Nanna, oder Über das Seelenleben der Pflanzen
nothing is without a material basis
mind and matter are the same essence
Psychophysics
What changes in our psychological perception of X as some characteristic, Y, of the physical world changes.
Relationship between physical stimulus & psychological experience of it
e.g., How does perception of color change as frequency of light changes
Could now conduct experiments on MIND
New Psychology at Leipzig
Before Fechner only physiological psychology and philosophical psychology.
Fechner’s experimental method began a whole new wave in psychology, which became the basis for modern experimental psychology.
Wundt: the study of consciousness was best done through newly emerging sciences including Fechner’s Psychophysics.
only this scientific approach would allow understanding of the “complex products of the unconscious mind.”
Fechner: Elements of Psychophysics (1860)
Methods for determining thresholds
Limits (find threshold by + or – staircase)
Constant stimuli (find threshold by + or – random presentation)
Adjustment (Sub control)
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)
Johannes Müller & Hermann Helmholtz @ Heidelberg
Principles of Physiological Psychology (1873-4)
the first comprehensive handbook of modern experimental psychology
Preface “a new domain of science”
sensory psychophysics, brain localization, etc.
Went to Leipzig in Philosophy: 1875
Experimentation on Consciousness (not behavior)
Lab 1879 (RT studies; introspection)
1st Psych Journal 1881 (Philosophische Studien)
Wundt’s New Psychology: 2 Branches
Immediate Conscious Experience
Investigated in the laboratory
Use of “internal perception” (introspection)
Psychophysics
Völkerpsychologie (Cf: more recent Hx interest)
“language, art, myth, and customs…”
Investigated outside of the lab
Social Science: Observation, case study, etc.
Inside Wundt’s lab
Sensation & perception
Psychophysics
Mental chronometry
Reaction time for simple vs complex stim
Mental Chronometry
F. C. Donders (Ophthalmol., Optom., Neuroimaginig, etc)
Q: are mental processes measurable?
A: “An important factor seemed to be susceptible to measurement: I refer to the time required for simple mental processes" (Donders, 1868).
SRT = simple reaction time (percept + motor)
See White, hit key
DRT = discrimination reaction time
See White OR Red, Only hit key for white
DRT = SRT + discrimination time
CRT = choice reaction time
See White or Red, Hit W key for White, R key for Red
CRT = SRT + DRT + choice time
Problem: assumption of additivity
Wundt’s New Psychology (more recent findings)
Changing conceptions of Wundt
Old: structuralist, goal is analysis, the lab is all that matters
New: voluntarism (effort of the will), active mind, apperception, Völkerpsycologie, lab is important (among other things)
NOTE: Need To Continue To Do History
Old view believed by Titchener, promoted by Boring’s history text
New view outcome of renewed interest in history and the development of cognitive psychology
i.e., revision of Wundt would not have occurred prior to the context of renewed interest in cognition in 1970s
The New Psychology Spreads
Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)
University of Bonn Ph.D. 1873
Read Elemente der Psychophysik in London
Memory. A Contribution to Experimental Psychology 1885
Univ of Berlin (3rd lab after Wundt & GE Muller in Göttingen)
study formation of original associations
Stim: Nonsense syllable (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant)
no pre-existing associations
Learning: learning to criterion
Retention: Orig Learning vs. repetitions required to relearn
Avoid issues of conscious recall
N=1, year long experiment, replicated
Ebbinghaus (continued)
Set high standards for experimental control
Highly quantitative treatment of data
Findings:
shape of the learning curve
time required to memorize an average nonsense syllable increases sharply as the number of syllables increases
distributing learning trials over time better than massing practice into a single session
continuing to practice material after the learning criterion has been reached enhances retention
primacy and recency effects
Early finding of what later came to be called STM capacity
Max CVCs repeated accurately after just one reading = 7
The time course of forgetting (from 20 min - 30 days later)
forgotten very rapidly at first; then forgetting levels out and whatever information is left after the initial memory decay tends to stay in memory
Georg Elias Müller (1850-1934)
Studies psychophysics w/Fechner; PhD (1873) from Göttingen w/Rudolf Herman Lotze (Fechner student, MD & Philosopher)
Scientific Method – Halt
limitations of Ebbinghaus’ work
E used himself as both subject and experimenter
could see other syllables above and below target
imprecise exposure to each syllable with metronome
Memory Drum
Rotating Drum (kymograph) used to present list
rotation was timed and would be constant
screen with slot limited view to only one item at a time
a stepping action held item still for a fixed amount of time
Introspection
Memory entails complex processes
Consciousness strategies
Inhibition (Retroactive & Proactive)
Georg Elias Müller (1850-1934)
Grouping / Chunking
Rückle, a mathematics PhD student at Göttingen, was a memory prodigy.
Consolidation
How many trials needed to learn the nonsense syllables
Quantified by percentage correct
Retroactive Interference (Most Known for This)
Nonsense Syllables for 6 minutes
Exp: View & Describe landscape paintings
Cont: No Distractors
Recall List
Cont > Exp groups on # of items recalled from list
