Ps410 - new psychology and structuralism

Contestability

History is written in a way that claims are debatable, invites others to examine and test

Wundt (founding father)

He founded psychology as a discipline, established first lab, first journal and experiments - focused on sensation and perception, feeling reaction time and association

Fetchner (father of psych debate)

He was not trying to find a new science, he wanted to describe a unified conception of mind and body with scientific basis.

Voluntarism (Wundt)

The idea that the kind has the capacity to organize mental contents into higher level processing

Mediate experience (Wundt)

Provide info about something other than the elements of the experience

Immediate experience

Unbiased by interpretation

Introspection

Examining one’s own mind.

Apperception

Process by which mental states are organized

Franz Brentano

Priest, created act psychology (should study activities “seeing” rather than content) wanted empirical methods, prioritized observation. Can study mental acts through memory and imagination.

Carl stumpf

Created phenomenology (unbiased introspection) debated with Wundt over introspection of music

Oswald külpe

Studied at Leipzig, worked with Wundt, he wanted to study thought, developed method of introspection with retrospective reporting. Created imageless thought - thought can occur without sensory or imaginary content. Studied weights and word association

Systematic experimental introspection

Involved observers, controlled stimuli, focus on immediate experience, no interpretation, could he replicated. Quantatative

Titchner

Created structuralism (analyze basic elements of conciousness) focused on mechanistic. Break down mind into parts. No women allowed in meetings. Known for his odd teaching style.

Titchner conscious experience

Come breed on subjective conscious experiences - the way humans react and perceive stimuli

Stimulus error

Confusing mental process under study with stimulus or object being observed

Titchner introspection model

Self observation, called things in basic elements, detailed qualitative work, emphasized parts rather than whole. Called his subjects reagents (like chemicals).

Criticisms of Titchner introspection

Lack of agreement, stimulus error (they would use familiar words instead of describing it raw), difficulty in defining it, inconsistency

Retrospection

Observers could only report on experiences after they occurred, losing key details