Early German Psychologists

1. Early German Psychologists

2. Early Anticipation of Wundt • Johann Kruger – 1756 • An Attempt at an Experimental Psychology • An anticipation because it was lost or ignored until 1950’s • Appears to be more similar to modern psychology that Wundt’s psychology

3. Psychophysics • An attempt to understand the relationship between the physical world and the psychological world • Measured mental events and compared them to the measurement of physical events – show that they covary • Changing the value of a physical event in some way will systematically change the value of the psychological event • Two important contributors to psychology • Ernst Weber • Gustav Fechner

4. Ernst Weber • Two-point threshold • Weight discrimination – just noticeable difference (JND) • Weber’s Law – 1st quantitative law in psychology and 1st statement of a systematic relationship between physical stimulus and psychological experience

5. Gustav Fechner • Built upon the ideas of Weber • Developed 3 important research methods • Method of limits • Method of constant stimuli • Method of adjustment

6. Fechner (cont.) • Developed the term psychophysics • Monism – the mental and physical are simply 2 aspects of the same reality; not separate entities • Elementes (1860) – identified as the beginning of experimental psychology by some historians • Mental processes could be quantified (measured) • Mental events could be examined using the precision of scientific methods

7. Hermann Ebbinghaus • Philosopher who spent time teaching and traveling • Read Fechner’s Elemente and converted to the study of psychology • His goal was to study higher mental processes using methods similar to psychophysics • 1st person to systematically study memory

8. Ebbinghaus’ Methods • Highly original – he had no one to learn from • Best known for his use and invention of nonsense syllables to study memory unaffected by previous learning

9. Areas of Research • 1. What is the relationship between amount of material to be remembered and time needed to learn it • Measured increases in number of repetitions to master list of nonsense syllables of different lengths • 2. What is the relationship to the amount of learning and the amount remembered? • Used a relearning paradigm • Formed 7 lists of 16 nonsense syllables, repeated them 0, 8 ,16 . . . 64 times. 24 hours later measured # of repetitions to relearn each list discovered over learning

10. Other Areas of Interest • What is the relationship between the passage of time and loss from memory? • Relearned lists 0, 20, 60 minutes . . . 31 days after learning. Amount of savings measured – comparison of repetitions to learn and to relearn lists • Less known but verified by much later research • Distributed learning better than mass learning • Active learning better than passive learning • Meaningful material easier to learn that meaningless • Information learned before sleeping better remembered than material learned at other times

11. Later Criticisms of Ebbinghaus • Experiments lacked ecological validity – use of nonsense syllables instead of real words • Use of a single subject; himself • However, most of his findings are still accurate today

12. Ebbinghaus as a Foundation for Binet • He developed analogy tests and completion tests to test children • Analogy example • July is to May as Saturday is to . • Completion example • Big things are heavier than . • Child’s answer timed and evaluated for appropriateness • Similar items used by Binet in his intelligence tests

13. Franz Brentano • Important but not well known • Dominican priest who left the church because of his inability to accept the infallibility of the pope

14. Franz Brentano’s Psychology • 1. Placed more importance on logic than experimentation • 2. Believed that once important observation were completed psychology would change very little • 3. Psychology should be the study of mental acts – not the products of mental processes • 4. He rejected introspection – proposed the use of imagination

15. Brentano’s Legacy • Not very well know primarily due to a lack of writing • Greatest contribution was his impact on his students such as Carl Stumpf and Christian von Ehrenfels

16. Carl Stumpf • Greatest contributions were to the study of auditory perception • Most famous for his role in the case of “Clever Hans” • Founded the psychology laboratory at the University of Berlin that competed with Wundt’s for prestige

17. Influences on Stumpf • Ernst Mache – studies showing that a perception is more than the individual elements or sensations • Mache bands • Christian von Ehrenfels – coined the term “Gestalt” to describe the organization of an experience • Musician and composer who showed that melody played on a piano in one key, and then played in a second key or on a trumpet sounded different but were perceived as the same melody

18. Stumpf’s Psychology • Mental phenomena not consciousness should be studied by psychology – study the whole not the parts • Studied tha combination of pure tones into complex tones • Two pure tones presented together produce an experience distinctively different from the separate tones • Attacked by Wundt who said as Titchner would have said “these findings occurred as the result of using “improperly trained” observers”

19. Oswald Kulpe • Oswald Kuple, a student of Wundt founded the Wurzburg School of psychology • He gradually moved away from a Wundtian perspective to one more similar to Stumpf

20. Kulpe’s Psychology • Refuted much of Wundt’s psychology, but without the vicious attacks • Important findings • Imageless thought – some thoughts required no images or sensations – doubting, searching, etc. • Complex mental processes can be studied • Phenomena of mental sets • Stressed the importance of motivation in problem solving

21. Decline of the Wurzburg School • The clash of scientific ideas between Wurzburg – Stumpf and wundt – Titchner eventually led to the decline of both • The Wurzburg school died when Kulpe died in 1915; as structuralism died when Titchner died

22. Obscurity of Many Early German Psychologists • WWI – many went into the armed forces or their students left for the war • Loss of students meant their was no one to continue their work • American focus on functionalism and behaviorism gave less importance to these German’s cognitive perspectives