Wundt & Structuralism

Influences on Wundt and the development of structuralism included: Descartes, Johann Friedrich Herbart, Ernst Weber and Gustav Fechner

Descartes—4 Major questions

He asked

1. Is psychology a science of the mind or behavior or both?

2. Is psychology a natural science or a human science e or a hybrid?

3. Is psychology strictly a deterministic science or must free will be included?

4. How do the mind and body interact?

Descartes shaped psychology by his dualistic thesis that a human being represents a unison b/t a psychological mind and a mechanical body. The mind is a thinking substance, conscious of itself and capable of being studied by self-observation. Descartes anticipated the distinction b/t private conscious experience and publicly observed behavior as the subject matter for psychology. Should psychology study feelings such as anger or angry behavior such as a temper tantrum or both? Descartes also realized that if the mind and body are separate but interact, the source of this relationship should be studied.

The influence of Wundt is very clear given Wundt’s emphasis on using introspection as the primary means of collecting data about the mind. Introspection is the observation and reporting of conscious experience—the individual searches their own thought processes, feelings, etc. in response to stimuli manipulated by the experimenter

Herbart

Herbart encouraged the view that psychology is an independent science and he endorsed an empirical approach to psychology. He influenced psychology in 4 ways. These are outlined below

1. He conceptualized psychology as the science of consciousness thus steering psychology in the direction of the mental science - clearly this influenced Wundt and his push for introspection as a research method.

2. He though of mental events as being analogous to forces that interact with each other - sometimes these interactions between mental events, such as feelings and desires, force an idea below or above the threshold of snsciousness. An idea could be puched into the unconscious to appear to be gone (repression) or released from consciousness (this is a very clear connection to what will become psychoanalytic theory based on Freud which will be studied later).

3. He made great efforts to mathematics the interaction of ideas in sondciousness. The notion that mental events, like physical phenomena, could be represented mathematically encouraged a quantitative orientation among many subsequent psychologists.

4. Despite the emphasis on quantitative methods, he denied that psychology could be an empirical science. This seemed to highly motivate Wundt to prove Herbart wrong. Wundt sought to make psychology an empirical science.

Ernst Weber

Weber studied “psychophysics” = study of the relations between mental and physical processes. He was interested in discovering how sensitive humans are to differences between physical stimuli. His goal was to quantify this relationship between the mental process of perception (like perceiving brightness of lights) and physical properties of the stimulus (the light itself). The influence on Wundt was primarily on of systematic experimentation. Wundt clearly adopted systematic experimentation as the only approach in his lab.

Fechner

Fechner described the relationship between human sensations and phsysical stimulation. The success was based on the realization that a human being can be conceived as a measuring instrument just as a scale of weight can. After hefting 2 weights, a person tells which one is heavier. After weighting 2 weights a scale also tells which is heavier. These 2 kinds of measurements—psychic (human) and physical (weighing from a scale) provided the essential ingredients for a new science of psycho metrics (measurement of mental events). Again, the influence on Wundt is clear. Wundt emphasized the importance of measuring mental events.

Wundt

In 1879, Wundt established and began publishing research from his lab in Leipzig Germany “psychology was a science of the mind, of conscious experience.” Wundt assume that consciousness at a given moment can be experience: (1) Directly — subjective pattern for sensations and feelings, and (2) Indirectly — eliminating all subjective factors. Using the moon as an example, it can be experimentation “Directly”—such as having a pleasant feeling while looking at it, or “Indirectly”—such as noting its shape, position in the sky, intensity of the light.

The difference between direct and indirect experience was expressed in Wund’ts distinction between “immediate” and “mediate” experience. Immediate experiences Involve patterns of sensations (colors, feelings, etc.) elicited by observing something - like sensations. Whereas, Mediate experiences involve our understanding of what we are observing (it is wall paper) - like perception.

Wundt and Consciousness

Wundt had 4 basic beliefs about consciousness:

1. Consciousness is NOT a stable substance - it involves constant flux and change

2. The mind is NOT a dialect homogenous whole but is divided into different psychical processes - such as sensing, feeling, thinking, language

3. Mental events CANNOT be reduced to physiological events - a feeling of depression is different from the biomedical conditions that occur with that feeling

4. Mental events occur in a lawful fashion and it should be possible to formulate general principles that govern their occurrence—this lead to Wundt’s interest in how to study psychology

The 3 main methods Wundt proposed were:

1. Introspection - undercontrolled, systematic and empirical methods observation of consciousness or inner perceptions could be as valid as perceptions of the outer world. Proper training would be used to ensure that the observer is capable of distinguishing immediate from mediate experienced. Wundt was interested in the unprocessed (immediate) experiences (it is brown, it is tall, it has green on it), not the analyzed perception (it is a tree)

2. Experimentation - introspection directly revealed mental processes. Experimentation provided information from which the nature of mental events could be inferred - like changing lighting conditions, etc.

3. Historical analysis - through the use of records such as diaries, pieces fo art, etc. one could gather information from which the nature of mental events could be inferred. As an example:

The question of how voluntary actions take place (such as moving your finger) cannot be fully answered by observing consciousness. Instead, objective evidence in the form of how long it takes to initiate such an action when requested can be used as the basis for inferring the nature of mental processes involved in voluntary actions. One could manipulate experimental conditions and see how reaction time is affected.

Structuralism as a Formal School of Though

Structuralism as a “school of thought” in psychology was formally founded by one of Wundt’s students, Edward Bradford Titchener (1867-1927). Titchener actively pursued Wundt’s goal of providing an accurate picture of the mind. 2 intellectual traditions were particularly important in influencing Titchener and the concept of structuralism that he developed: (1) Associationsim, and (2) positivism.

Associationist = mental events tend to be related; they do not occur in a random sequence. You may recall Aristotle’s principles of Association — 3 principles that govern the succession of though: a. Similarity b. Contrast c. Contiguity. The image of an apple may bring Roth the image of a pear (similarity), a glowing pang of hunger may remind you of how pleasant it feels to NOT be hungry (contrast) and the thought of a steak may make you thin of potatoes because you always have potatoes with your steak (contiguity). Titchener full believed the fundamental notion of Associationism - “Mental events are controlled by principles of association; what occurs in soncsiousness is determined by the linkages mental events have with each other.”

Positivism = a philosophical position that insists valid knowledge about the world is based exclusively on the methods of the natural sciences. Speculations that go beyond objective scientific facts cannot be accepted as valid. Wundt was opposed to this because a positivism position runs counter to his view that mental life could be empirically studied via introspection.

Methodological Assumptions: Titchener agreed with Wundt that psychology was the science of the mind - of conscious experience. according to Titchener, mind refers to the “sum total of mental processes occurring during the lifetime of the individual.” Consciousness refers to the “sum total of the mental processes occurring at any given moment in time.” Although Wundt and Titchener agreed about the subject matter of psychology, they disagreed about the meaning of experience — Wundt distinguished between immediate experience and mediate experience.

Stimulus Error: a stimulus error is committed when the person introspecting attends to the physical properties of the stimulus instead of the psychological sensations. Like Wundt, Titchener felt that a distinction should be made between experiences that are specific to the observer, and those that are related to the stimulus itself. Titchener, however, insisted that the e two experiences were aspect of one experience rather that 2 separate experiences as Wundt had argues. In other words, Titchener believed there is only one kind of experience that could be viewed in 2 different ways, depended or independent of a particular person. Titchener argues that psychology should focus on experience independent of the person, physical experience. For this reason, he felt that psychology was a natural science despite the goal of explaining human consciousness.

Titchner’s View of consciousness: although consciousness is ever-changing — it can be formally studied. Mind is built up from its elements (more complex mental functions are a result of less complex ones). Assessed the importance of the past, sought to understand how past experiences get integrated into our perceptions of the present, and seeks to delineate how current perceptions anticipate the future.

Titchener’s Stategy for Psychology: Titchener offered a simple strategy for psychologists. He said, “the aim of the psychologist is threefold. He seeks: (1) to analyze concrete (actual) mental experience into its simplest components, (2) to discover how these elements combine, what are the laws that govern their combination, and (3) to bring them into connect with their physiological (bodily) conditions.

Structuralism

the school of thought which Titchener posited was called “structuralism” because it sought to “analyze the structure of the mind, to ravel out the elemental processes of the tangle of consciousness.” Titchener’s use of the “3 elements” of consciousness was to be used to accurately describe the structure of the mind: (1) sensations - the basic components of sights and sounds, (2) images - the elements of ideas occur in mental processes, and (3) affections - the elements of emotion that combine to form such experiences as “good” or “bad” and such information can regulate more intense emotions such as “love” or “hate”.

According to Tichener, the proper concern of psychology was the general adult human mind. This insistence automatically eliminated consideration of the mental events of other organisms, like children, the psychologically disturbed, and animals because Titchener felt that all of these were incapable of correctly looking into their own consciousness.

So, What is the Main Point Here?

The main point of structuralism was to illuminate the exact brain structures involved in any conscious action. But analyzing structures in consciousness was only the first step needed. The next step was to discover the principles that governed how these conscious structures and systems worked together to result in consciousness. As such, Structuralism focused on 2 issues: (1) analysis of consciousness (into its elements) and (2) synthesis of those elements to test the correctness of our analysis.

When breaking consciousness down into its elements, a series of questions must be asked: (1) has analysis gone as far as it can go or can the elements be broken down further? (2) has analysis taken account of all the elements which are contained in the experience?, (3) the analysis must be repeated to determine if it can go, and (4) When on psychologist says a process is elemental (most basic), other psychologists repeat that analysis, trying to carry it further. If it cannot be further broken down, it is a basic element of consciousness - an early call for the importance of replication in research.

With synthesis - when we have analyzed a complex into the basic elements (a,b,c, etc.) we test our analysis by trying to put it back together--to get it back from the elements. If the complex can thus be restored, the analysis is correct and the psychologist understands the structures and process of consciousness for that experience!

Steps to Structuralism

1. analyze conscious experience into its most basic elements

2. repeat analysis to verify basic elements

3. synthesize basic elements back into complex

4. compare this reconstruction of mental experience with the experience as originally given

5. if these 2 correspond, that conscious experience if fully understood.

In the 1950s, Educational Psychologist Benjamin Bloom seemed to have utilized Titchener’s steps in putting together a taxonomy of cognitive objectives that he felt teachers should teach students to use to make sure they truly understand what they are learning. Bloom called for teachers to teach students to engage in all of the following steps with their knowledge:

1. Remembering - recognition or recitation of specific facts.

2. Comprehending - an articulated understanding of the information.

3. Applying - the ability to apply information toward the solution of issues and/or problems outside the classroom.

4. Analyzing - the process of breaking a problem down into subparts, and recognition of the connections *or lack of connections) between those subparts. During this process, useless pieces of information are identified and discounted.

5. Evaluating - the proposed solution is implemented. An attempt is made to assess the degree to which that solution resolves the problem. If the solution does not resolve the problem, the process (at least at the analysis level) may need to start again.

6. Creating - an ability to take the remaining subparts (those identified as meaningful and interconnected during the analyzing phase) into a more meaningful whole.