Started the first laboratory and the first journal in experimental psychology

1. Wilhelm Wundt (1832 – 1920) • Started the first laboratory and the first journal in experimental psychology • Viewed Fechner's work as the first experimental psychology

2. Fechner: Psychology’s OriginatorWundt: Psychology’s Founder • Founding is deliberate and intentional • Founding is different from making outstanding scientific contributions • Founding requires integration of prior knowledge • Founding involves promotion of the newly integrated material • Wundt did all of the above plus promoted systematic experimentation as the essential method of psychology

3. Wilhelm Wundt (1832 – 1920) • Wundt’s life • Only child, poor student, disliked school • Goal: MD – work in science and make a living • Disliked medicine, switched to physiology • Student of Johannes Müller at U. of Berlin • Lab assistant to Helmholtz and professor at U. of Heidelberg • While working in physiology, conceived of independent, experimental science of psychology

4. Leipzig Lab Gear Perimeter Model Eye

5. Leipzig Lab Gear Precision Chronograph Pulse Generator Tachistoscope

6. Wundt’s Cultural Psychology • Divided psychology in two parts: experimental and social • Argued higher mental processes such as learning and memory… • cannot be studied experimentally • are conditioned by language and culture • can be studied using methods of sociology and anthropology

7. Elements of Conscious Experience • Wundt’s goals for psychology • Analyze conscious processes into their basic elements • Discover how these elements are synthesized or organized • Determine the laws of connection governing the organization of the elements

8. Wundt and Introspection • Observers must know when the procedure will begin • Observers must be “in a state of readiness or strained attention” • The observation must be repeatable numerous times • The experimental conditions must be varied in terms of control over stimulus manipulation Critics feared that too much introspection would drive students insane!

9. Wundt's Psychology in Germany • Spread rapidly • Did not transform nature of academic psychology within the country • Remained a subspecialty of philosophy for 20 years • Usefulness of the discipline was doubted • In contrast, psychology in the United States grew more rapidly

10. Criticisms of Wundtian Psychology • Disapproval of method of introspection • Differences in results obtained by different observers; Who is correct? • Introspection as a private experience; Cannot settle disagreements through replication

11. Wundt’s Legacy • Personal political views • After WWI two schools of thought in Germany challenged Wundt's views • WWII: his lab destroyed in a bombing raid • “...The nature, content, form, and even home of Wundtian psychology” were lost • In the U.S., functionalism and behaviorism overshadowed Wundtian psychology • Psychology itself flourished through the 1900s

12. Wundt’s Legacy: Students • August Kirschmann • Light sensitivity in the retina • Emil Kraepelin • Described schizophrenia, manic-depressive disorder, effects of alcohol and morphine • Opposed Freud and psychoanalysis • Lightner Witmer • Studied Learning in mentally handicapped children • Coined the term clinical psychology

13. UK and America • Psychology took a different course in England and exerted more influence in America than did Wundt's work. • American psychologists trained under Wundt transformed its system to a distinctively American psychology • Psychology divided into factions; Wundt’s version one of many.

14. Other Developments in Germany • Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) • Directed clear experiments on memory (nonsense syllables) • Influenced by Fechner • Fechner – Measured senses indirectly with thresholds • Ebbinghaus – Measured memory indirectly by counting numbers of items recalled after specific periods of time

15. Ebbinghaus and Memory • Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve • CVC Nonsense syllables (lef, bok) • Control for familiarity • Randomized presentation from 2,300 syllables • Compared nonsense to sense • 80 nonsense syllables • 80 syllables of Don Juan

16. Other Developments in Germany • Franz Brentano (1838-1917) • Father of Act Psychology • Devout Catholic background • Broke with church over papal infallibility

17. Franz Brentano A vision of Psychology’s future “How many evils could be remedied…by knowledge according to which a mental state can be modified!” • This would be the basic theme of American Functionalism

18. Other Developments in Germany • Carl Stumpf (1848-1936) • Appointed to professorship at the University of Berlin • Wundt’s major rival • Two of his students founded Gestalt Psychology • Kurt Koffka • Wolfgang Köhler

19. Other Developments in Germany • Oswald Külpe (1862-1915) • Wundt’s assistant at Leipzig • Appointed to Würzburg (1894) and became Wundt’s rival • Higher mental functions could be studied and psychology need not be limited to explaining basic functions Look at Ebbinghaus!

20. Külpe’s Split with Wundt • Systematic Experimental Introspection • Study thought processes by asking subjects to explain the path to a conclusion • Two detectives – same solution • Wundt hated retrospective approaches! • Called it “Mock Introspection” • Study the NOW

21. Külpe’s Split with Wundt • Külpe proposed Imageless Thought • Wundt: Thoughts are built from images • Külpe: The face of a new acquaintance? Your ability to think about her later does not depend on your ability to describe her face, voice etc. • What about concepts like loyalty, Id, eternity? • Külpe alsodescribed the Mental Set

22. Mental Set

23. Comment • Psychology fraught with divisions and controversies from the beginning • Germany did not remain the center of psychology • Titchener brought his own version of Wundt's psychology to the United States