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Reaction-Time Experiments in Wundt’s Institute and Beyond
Abstract
Kurt Danziger (1980d) observed, “The reaction-time studies conducted during the first few years of Wundt’s laboratory constitute
the first historical example of a coherent research program, explicitly directed toward psychological issues and involving
a number of interlocking studies” (p. 106). Wilhelm Wundt argued that these experiments investigated “purely psychological”
phenomena, whereas much work in psychophysics and sensory physiology did not.
... Como indicam Danziger (1980c) e Blumenthal (1980), ao longo das traduções inglesas da obra de Wundt, termos como reine Selbstbeobachtung, innere Wahrnehmung e experimentelle Selbstbeobachtung foram igualmente tratados como equivalentes e traduzidos como introspecção, levando a uma confusão em relação ao método adotado por Wundt. Embora essa questão tenha sido esclarecida a partir dos estudos dos anos 80 (Araujo, 2010a;Blumenthal, 1980;Danziger, 1998;Robinson, 2001), ainda assim, sua distinção em relação à percepção interna e à introspecção ou auto-observação pura não está claramente apresentada em muitos manuais ou, em alguns casos, apesar de reconhecida, a percepção interna é tratada como um tipo distinto de método experimental, e não como um processo psíquico a ser estudado com recursos experimentais (Jones & Elcock, 2001;Stenberg, 2003). ...
... No desenho metodológico adotado por Wundt, além do controle das condições de observação, as pesquisas envolviam um número pequeno de participantes, uma vez que, segundo sua concepção, os processos psíquicos individuais não eram simplesmente idiossincráticos, mas constituíam uma expressão da mente humana em geral e, desde que os requisitos experimentais fossem rigorosamente atendidos e a pessoa fosse suficientemente instruída acerca dos procedimentos e dos processos a serem observados, estava garantida a fidedignidade dos resultados em relação ao funcionamento universal da mente humana (Danziger, 1998;Wundt, 1896Wundt, , 1913. Com isso, o procedimento experimental clássico utilizado por Wundt envolvia, via de regra, apenas a pessoa sob experimento (Versuchsperson), também chamada de observador (Beobachter) e aquele que manipula o aparato experimental (Experimentator), além dos instrumentos destinados à produção dos estímulos e registro das respostas (Danziger, 1998;Robinson, 2001). Tais funções eram desempenhadas, em geral, pelos próprios estudantes de Wundt, e não por pessoas estranhas entre si e ingênuas em relação ao objetivo dos estudos. ...
... Em função das limitações próprias ao método experimental e da relação estabelecida entre as duas séries de processos físicos e psíquicos, sua adoção pela psicologia deve ser restrita, segundo Wundt, àqueles fenômenos que são diretamente acessíveis às influências físicas, isto é, que estão funcionalmente relacionados aos órgãos dos sentidos e do movimento e que constituem os processos psíquicos mais simples ou fundamentais (Wundt, 1986), e não às expressões mais elaboradas, formadas por relações mais fortes, como as emoções, os processos volitivos e o pensamento. Essa restrição metodológica apenas aos fenômenos psíquicos simples se reflete nos trabalhos realizados por Wundt no laboratório de Leipzig, em que as pesquisas concentravam-se sobre fenômenos como a sensação, a percepção e a atenção, os correlatos fisiológicos das emoções e as associações representacionais (Tinker, 1980;Robinson, 2001). ...
O objetivo do presente trabalho é comparar as definições de objeto e método nos projetos de psicologia experimental de Wilhelm Wundt e Edward Titchener. Tendo em vista as aproximações equivocadas entre os autores presentes nos manuais de psicologia e a escassez de estudos mais sistemáticos acerca da obra de Titchener, em especial no cenário nacional, as comparações entre as idéias de ambos, disponíveis na literatura secundária, ainda não foram suficientes para demonstrar as diferenças entre suas propostas. Frente a este panorama, propõe-se uma comparação das definições de objeto e método da psicologia, especificamente nas obras que representam o período de maturidade das idéias de Wundt, com aquelas que caracterizam a expressão clássica do estruturalismo de Titchener. A tese central é que, em função dos distintos pressupostos teóricos, as noções de experiência humana e do domínio do psíquico adquirem um diferente significado no pensamento de cada autor, configurando com isso diferentes objetos de estudo para a psicologia e, consequentemente, uma diferente compreensão acerca das possibilidades e limites do método experimental.
... As many textbooks point out, experimental psychology evolved in the intellectual context of the Newtonian conception of science, which stressed quantitative measurement in its search for general laws of nature. Mental chronometry, the measurement of reaction times, was one of the earliest attempts to quantify mental phenomena (Robinson, 2001). Measuring the speed of mental events had practical origins in astronomers' efforts to determine the precise transit times of stars that appeared in the reticle of a telescope. ...
... In 1816, Bessel examined records of transit times recorded by different astronomers, finding systematic differences that could be equilibrated against one another by means of a simple adjustment called the personal equation. By the 1860s, the Swiss astronomer Adolph Hirsch was using the Hipp chronoscope to quantify reaction times in a controlled laboratory setting using experimentally contrived, artificial stellar transits (Diamond, 2001;Robinson, 2001). A second impetus for mental chronometry was Helmholtz's demonstration of 1850 that the speed of a neural impulse in a frog's leg was not infinite, as had been supposed by vitalists such as Helmholtz's mentor Johannes Müller, but instead traveled at the speed of about 26 m/s. ...
... However, after a brief flourishing of research with the method-notably in the hands of Wundt's American student James McKeen Cattell-doubts began to arise about the method's adequacy. These stemmed in part from debates about the number of successive stages in mental processing that could be fractionated with the method and in part from inconsistencies of results and the identification of other variables that affected them, including the role of attentional sets (Robinson, 2001; on sensory vs. motor attentional sets, see the discussion below). By 1890, William James and Hugo Münsterberg had weighed in against the legitimacy of the method, and Wundt's former student Oswald Külpe would soon argue that the logic of the subtractive method, however appealing in its assumption of additive mental stages, rested on an oversimplified conception of the processes involved in thought. ...
The course in history of psychology can be challenging for students, many of whom enter it with little background in history and faced with unfamiliar names and concepts. The sheer volume of material can encourage passive memorization unless efforts are made to increase student involvement. As part of a trend toward experiential history, historians of science have begun to supplement their lectures with demonstrations of classic physics experiments as a way to bring the history of science to life. Here, the authors report on computer simulations of five landmark experiments from early experimental psychology in the areas of reaction time, span of attention, and apparent motion. The simulations are designed not only to permit hands-on replication of historically important results but also to reproduce the experimental procedures closely enough that students can gain a feel for the nature of early research and the psychological processes being studied.
... The approach to reaction times in psychological research has taken many years of experimental research (e. g. Robinson, 2001). Indeed, reaction time has become an important topic of research for experimental psychologists since middle of 19th Century (Ashoke, Shikha, & Sudarsan, 2010). ...
... Simple reaction time is the minimum time required to respond to a signal (Bonnet, Gurlekian, & Harris, 1992;Pain & Hibbs, 2007, Tolhurst, 1975. Such a reaction time is taken to be the time required for the transmission of a fixed quantity of information (Norwich, Seburn, & Axelrad, 1989;Robinson, 2001).Thus, the participant indicates as quickly as possible when a stimulus appears, so that a low reaction time obtained from a well-trained participant ranged from 180 to 200 milliseconds (Shelton & Kumarose, 2010;Thompson, Colebatch, Brown, Rothwell, Day, & Marsden, 1992). Subsequently, simple reaction time is understood as a detection task that involves only the detection of the appearance of stimuli (Bonnet, Gurlekian, & Harris, 1992;Bonnet 1994;Henry & Rogers, 1960). ...
Una imagen biestable admite dos interpretaciones, de modo que el observador reconoce cada percepto, pero nunca los dos al mismo tiempo. Cada alternancia entre uno y otro percepto se conoce con el nombre de “reversibilidad perceptual”. Este tipo de percepción, denominada también “biestable”, puede implicar dos tipos de modulación, una mediada por las características físicas del estímulo visual y por las áreas de fijación ocular, y otra por información contextual o por conocimiento almacenado en memoria. En ese sentido, las alternancias perceptuales que se manifiestan durante la observación de una imagen biestable pueden estar condicionadas por la manera en que el observador recorre con su mirada el estímulo biestable, de manera tal que es manifiesta una asociación entre específicas áreas de la imagen y el percepto que se reconoce. En efecto, para la imagen biestable de Boring Mi novia o mi suegra, se han establecido áreas de fijación ocular que favorecen los dos posibles perceptos (una mujer joven y una mujer de edad). Algunas de estas zonas elicitan más la interpretación de uno de los perceptos, otras de los dos indistintamente, como se reconoce en estudios precedentes. Por otra parte, se ha encontrado evidencia de que cuando la posición corporal del observador es distinta a la posición erguida (el tronco y la cabeza alineados con la vertical), puede dificultarse la capacidad para hacer las alternancias perceptuales.
... The approach to reaction times in psychological research has taken many years of experimental research (e. g. Robinson, 2001). Indeed, reaction time has become an important topic of research for experimental psychologists since middle of 19th Century (Ashoke, Shikha, & Sudarsan, 2010). ...
... Simple reaction time is the minimum time required to respond to a signal (Bonnet, Gurlekian, & Harris, 1992;Pain & Hibbs, 2007, Tolhurst, 1975. Such a reaction time is taken to be the time required for the transmission of a fixed quantity of information (Norwich, Seburn, & Axelrad, 1989;Robinson, 2001).Thus, the participant indicates as quickly as possible when a stimulus appears, so that a low reaction time obtained from a well-trained participant ranged from 180 to 200 milliseconds (Shelton & Kumarose, 2010;Thompson, Colebatch, Brown, Rothwell, Day, & Marsden, 1992). Subsequently, simple reaction time is understood as a detection task that involves only the detection of the appearance of stimuli (Bonnet, Gurlekian, & Harris, 1992;Bonnet 1994;Henry & Rogers, 1960). ...
... Since the list of studies neglecting Avenarius could extend much further, let us concentrate on the few exceptions to this state of affairs. David K. Robinson (1987) reconstructs the relationship between Avenarius and Wundt from archival sources. Yet, being a historian, he does not focus on the philosophical discussion between the two. ...
... After his habilitation thesis and the aforementioned articles published in the Vierteljahrsschritft, Avenarius took a break of almost ten years from publishing, to develop his system of thought. This period ended when the two volumes of the Kritik der reinen Erfahrung (Critique of pure experience, 1888-1890) came out, promptly followed by Der menschliche Weltbegriff (The human concept of the world 1891) and the series 9 Engelmann to Wundt, June 6, 1881 (Wundt Archive, NA Wundt/III/1601-1700/1681/1/1-8). on the subject see also Robinson (1987). 10 (Remarks on the concept of object of psychology 1894-1895). ...
Russo Krauss outlines Wilhelm Wundt’s twofold strategy to respond to the new trend in experimental-physiological psychology. On the one side, he developed a theory about the purely psychological principles that characterize mental life (actuality, creative synthesis, relational analysis, and contrast amplification). On the other hand, he wrote a series of articles that attacked the “materialism” of the position maintained by his former pupils and allies, Hugo Münsterberg, Oswald Külpe, and Richard Avenarius. Regarding the latter, Wundt’s insisting on Avenarius being a philosopher, rather than a scientist, demonstrates the key role played by Avenarius in the debate on the philosophical foundation of scientific psychology.
... For information on the history of the Hipp chronoscope from an engineering point of view, see Schraven (2005). For information on the history of the reaction time experiment in the Leipzig context, see Robinson (2001) and Benschop and Draaisma (2000), and for information on the history of psychological instruments more generally, see Benschop (1998Benschop ( , 2001; Caudle (1983); Popplestone (1980); Popplestone and McPherson (1980);and Traxel, Gundlach, and Zschuppe (1986). For a discussion of the relation between instrument studies and the history of science, see Hankins and Silverman (1995). ...
... Since the chronoscopic studies of Hirsch, the ear had seemed to be less problematic in this respect than the eye. After the criticism Friedrich's (1883) setup had received from Tigerstedt and Bergqvist (1883), Lange was eager to exclude every possible source of error from this experiment and, at least in the Leipzig context, he set new standards for performing reaction time experiments (for more information on this point, see also Robinson, 2001). Above all, Lange was determined to "render harmless the disturbing noises emitted by the time measuring apparatus," since these noises were apt to contaminate (verunreinigen) all other experimental parameters. ...
In Wilhelm Wundt's (1832-1920) Leipzig laboratory and at numerous other research sites, the chronoscope was used to conduct reaction time experiments. The author argues that the history of the chronoscope is the history not of an instrument but of an experimental setup. This setup was initially devised by the English physicist and instrument maker Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875) in the early 1840s. Shortly thereafter, it was improved by the German clockmaker and mechanic Matthäus Hipp (1813-1893). In the 1850s, the chronoscope was introduced to ballistic research. In the early 1860s, Neuchâtel astronomer Adolphe Hirsch (1830-1901) applied it to the problem of physiological time. The extensions and variations of chronoscope use within the contexts of ballistics, physiology, and psychology presented special challenges. These challenges were met with specific attempts to reduce the errors in chronoscopic experiments on shooting stands and in the psychological laboratory.
... As is well documented, experimental psychology started from the analysis of RTs (Boring, 1957(Boring, /1929Grice et al., 1982;Niemi & Näätänen, 1981;Robinson, 2001). Because RTs are believed to measure the amount of information processing that is needed to reach a decision, it can potentially be used as an indicator of these psychological processes that precede overt responses. ...
The ability to evaluate the number of elements in a set—numerosity—without symbolic representation is a form of primitive perceptual intelligence. A simple binomial model was proposed to explain how observers discriminate the numerical proportion between two sets of elements distinct in color or orientation (Raidvee et al., 2017, Attention Perception & Psychophysics, 79[1], 267–282). The binomial model’s only parameter β is the probability with which each visual element can be noticed and registered by the perceptual system. Here we analyzed the response times (RT) which were ignored in the previous report since there were no instructions concerning response speed. The relationship between the mean RT and the absolute difference |ΔN| between numbers of elements in two sets was described by a linear regression, the slope of which became flatter as the total number of elements N increased. Because the coefficients of regression between the mean RT and |ΔN| were more directly related to the binomial probability β rather than to the standard deviation of the best fitting cumulative normal distribution, it was regarded as evidence that the binomial model with a single parameter — probability β — is a viable alternative to the customary Thurstonian–Gaussian model.
... Indeed, early on, psychology was framed as a revolutionary new approach to doing philosophy, then still regarded by many as the "Queen of the Sciences." To this end, Wundt built his new discipline around the most arcane of topics: the nature and role of "apperception" in the overarching psychological process, from sensation to motor action (see, e.g., Robinson, 2001). This is not to cast doubt on the sincerity of Wundt's interest in apperception, but he also had a strong professional motivation, within in the German educational context of the era, to ensure that the primary goal of his experimental psychology was widely seen as being the elucidation of apperception. ...
Enseigner l’histoire de la psychologie peut être un défi, principalement parce que de nombreux étudiants trouvent la matière ennuyeuse ou « non pertinente ». La façon de rendre le cours plus intéressant et « pertinent » est de relier son contenu à une série de personnages et d’événements historiques qui font déjà partie des réseaux de connaissances des étudiants. Cela pose toutefois un problème, car les étudiants d’aujourd’hui connaissent souvent peu d’histoire générale par rapport aux étudiants d’autrefois. Il incombe donc à l’enseignant d’histoire de la psychologie de fournir cette perspective plus large. Des exemples sont fournis, notamment la carrière de Wilhelm Wundt dans le contexte de l’unification allemande et l’utilisation britannique de tests standardisés dans le but de permettre aux femmes d’accéder à l’enseignement supérieur. Les questions du choix d’un manuel scolaire et de l’inclusion de documents de source primaire (publiés ou non) sont également abordées.
... In Leipzig laboratory many significant names in the history of psychology worked as Wundt's junior associates. Some of them were Oswald Külpe, Emil Kraepelin, Stanley Hall and James Cattell [4]. ...
Creating of Collection of old scientific instruments of Laboratory for experimental psychology, Faculty of philosophy, University of Belgrade is an attempt to preserve a part of history of science in Serbia. There are around 100 instruments in Collection, which mostly came to Belgrade within German war reparations to Kingdom of Yugoslavia, after the World War I. Most of the instruments were made in workshop of E. Zimmermann, precise mechanic of the first psychology laboratory in the world, founded in 1879 by Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig. They can be grouped on those aimed for examining visual and auditory perception, memory and learning, kimography and ergography and those designed for investigating emotions. Together with books and journals from 19th and beginning of 20th century, instruments create an ensemble based on which it is possible to reconstruct one psychological laboratory from the very beginning of development this scientific discipline.
... According to Schaffer (1988), astronomers reacted to the problem posed by the human observer's inconsistency by (1) policing observers more strictly, as in the case of the Greenwich observatory, and (2) by working for the development of more sophisticated instruments that wold reduce the dependency of the observation on the observer's personal reaction time. The introduction of the galvanic clock, for example, greatly reduced the amount of errors and was widely adopted in Europe (Schaffer 1988 Eventually, some of these technological innovations will be transferred from the astronomers' observatory to the psychologists' laboratory (Robinson 2001). Hirsch's study was fundamental for Wundt's research program at Leipzig (Robinson 2001: 164). ...
The main issue of the study is the perception of TV moderators’ image by young audience. By means of qualitative content analysis of popular Czech and Kyrgyz TV moderators and questionnaire survey in the Czech Republic and Kyrgyzstan, the author demonstrates how the perception of the TV moderator image can be influenced by gender and cultural background of audience. Moreover, it was established that besides the visual aspects of TV presentation personal characteristics play a significant role in the process of formation of young audience opinion about the talk show moderator. In addition, a relationship between the evaluation of communication strategies and popularity of moderators was found together with the fact that Czech respondents are in their evaluation more distinctive than the Kyrgyz ones.
... Accordingly, and similar to Donders, Wundt's approach makes the assumption that RTs to complex stimuli should be slower than (i.e., the sum of) simpler stimuli (cf. Robinson, 2001). The goal of more recent statistical methodology in the psychological sciences has been developed to allow us to test the processing assumptions underlying mental processing derived from these forbearers. ...
In this chapter, we explore the foundations of a major analytical foundation of Systems Factorial Technology (SFT) - the Double Factorial Paradigm (DFP). The experimental methodology of the DFP was developed by Townsend and colleagues for the purposes of examining the architecture and efficiency of an information processing system. The experimenter can implement the DFP in any setting by manipulating the presence versus absence of two factors, and secondly, the saliency (e.g., high versus low) of the same factors. Psychologists can use these model fitting techniques to open the "black box" so to speak, and determine whether the processing of chunks of information occurs in serial, parallel, or coactively. Traditionally, the DFP has been implemented in psychophysical detection studies. However, because psychologists and cognitive scientists are generally interested in how complex perception unfolds-whether it is face or word recognition-this chapter delves into an application involving audiovisual speech perception. Importantly, techniques outlined in this chapter can readily find applications in object, word, face, and speech recognition.
... helmholtz and hering performed experiments on the perception of color (Turner 1994). in the last quarter of the century, many areas were subject to experimental research, including attention, memory, and word recognition. The experimental techniques included, in Wundt's laboratory, the measurement of reaction times in order to identify various stages in psychological processes (Robinson 2001). ...
This chapter first discusses psychology in the eighteenth century as the background to nineteenth-century psychology. It then recounts developments within German psychology, British psychology, evolutionary psychology, and American psychology, followed by a discussion of introspective methods in the laboratory. The final three sections discuss conflicting opinions on the existence of unconscious mental states, review relations between philosophy and psychology, and survey the state of psychology in the early twentieth century.
... Aquí el incremento estuvo entre 368 ms y 455 ms; es decir, la "elección" responder/no-responder añadía tiempo extra sobre la mera apercepción o reconocimiento. (Robinson, 1987(Robinson, , 2001. ...
Cuando Wilhem Wundt funda en 1879 su laboratorio en la Universidad de Leipzig, nace la Psicología como ciencia. Considerado el primer laboratorio de la nueva disciplina, sirvió de inspiración y referencia a decenas de laboratorios repartidos por el mundo.
PREMIO UNE a la mejor monografía universitaria en CC. Salud (2014).
http://ujiapps.uji.es/serveis/scp/publ/
¿Cómo eran aquellos experimentos? ¿Qué aparatos empleaban -y diseñaban- en una época preelectrónica? Este libro nos traslada al interior del Institüt de Leipzig para husmear lo que se "cocía" entre sus paredes y conocer de cerca algunas de las ideas y conceptos que guiaron la investigación pionera que sirvió de arranque para la psicología científica.
... Although Wundt (1874) first exposed new experimental research on RTs (for a presentation, see Ribot, 1879), all of the studies carried out at the Leipzig laboratory were subsequently published in the lab journal, Philosophische Studien. A glance at all of the experimental studies carried out between 1879 and 1892 shows that the majority focused on psychometrics (see Robinson, 2001). During the first years of the laboratory's existence, researchers studied simple RTs for visual (e.g., Friedrich, 1881), auditory (e.g., Tischer, 1883;Martius, 1891), tactile (e.g., Lange, 1888b), and olfactory (e.g., Moldenhauer, 1883) sensations. ...
Chronoscopes and chronographs were commonly used instruments that measured reaction times (RTs) in the first psychology laboratories. The Hipp chronoscope is commonly associated with the emergence of psychological laboratories in the late 19th century. This instrument is considered the key apparatus for the study of scientific psychology. Although German and American psychologists preferred the Hipp chronoscope, French psychologists of late 19th century favored another chronometer built by Jacques Arsène d'Arsonval (1851-1940). Unlike German and American psychologists, French psychologists demanded less precision in most experimental situations because they claimed that individual differences are very pronounced in a variety of situations. The advantage of the d'Arsonval chronometer was its portability and its simplicity. This article presents this chronometer and its advantages and drawbacks. The Hipp chronoscope and the d'Arsonval chronometer were the most commonly used apparatuses in Europe for the measurement of RTs until World War II, as is demonstrated by the catalogues of the time (Zimmermann and Boulitte). (PsycINFO Database Record
... But even he recognized that the range of psychological phenomena that he could tame into a form suitable to laboratory investigation was highly restricted. Fractionating reaction times into sensations, perceptions, acts of will, muscular reactions, and, at the center of these, the allimportant apperceptions-impressive as the feat might have been-was only a small part of the totality of the mind (see Robinson, 2001). Although he continued to manage his very productive laboratory into the 1910s, Wundt devoted his own greatest efforts to writing the 10-volume Völkerpsychologie, in which he described the artistic, religious, and broader cultural lives of various peoples-all human mental activities that he did not believe to be amenable to the constraints of the laboratory. ...
Over the past few decades, a large literature has emerged on the question of how one might unify all or most of psychology under a single, coherent, rigorous framework, in a manner similar to that which unified physics under Newton's Laws, or biology under Darwin's theory of natural selection. It is argued here that this is a highly unlikely scenario in psychology given the contingent and opportunistic character of the processes that brought its original topics together into a new discipline, and the nearly continuous institutional, social, and even political negotiating and horse-trading that has determined psychology's "boundaries" in the 14 decades since. Psychology, as the field currently stands, does not have the intellectual coherence to be brought together by any set of principles that would enable its phenomena to be captured and explained as rigorous products of those principles. If there is a kind of unification in psychology's future, it is more likely to be one that, paradoxically, sees it broken up into a number of large "super-subdisciplines," each of which exhibits more internal coherence than does the current sprawling and heterogeneous whole.
... Meanwhile, in Leipzig, Wundt's physiological psychology program was beginning to stall (see Danziger, 1990;Robinson, 2001). The reaction time studies at the heart of Wundt's experimental program were delivering inconsistent results rather than zeroing in on the nature of the mind. ...
American functionalist psychology constituted an effort to model scientific psychology on the successes of English evolutionary theory. In part it was a response to the stagnation of Wundt's psychological research program, which had been grounded in German experimental physiology. In part it was an attempt to make psychology more appealing within the highly pragmatic American context and to facilitate the application of psychology to domains outside of the scientific laboratory. Applications of psychology that emerged from the functionalist ethos included child and developmental psychology, clinical psychology, psychological testing, and industrial/vocational psychology. Functionalism was also the ground within which behaviorism rooted and grew into the dominant form of psychology through the middle of the 20th century.
Cognitive psychology began over three-quarters of a century ago and we have learned a great deal in that time, including concerning the development of cognitive abilities such as perception, attention, and memory, all of which develop across infancy and childhood. Attention is one aspect of cognition that is vital to success in a variety of life activities and, arguably, the foundation of memory, learning, problem solving, decision making, and other cognitive activities. The cognitive abilities of later childhood and adulthood generally appear to depend on the reflexes, abilities, and skills of infancy. Research in developmental cognitive science can help us understand adult cognition and know when to intervene when cognitive function is at risk. This area of research can be challenging because, even in typical development, the course of cognitive development for a particular child does not always improve monotonically. In addition, the typical trajectory of this development has been understood differently from different historical perspectives. Neither the history of thought that has led to our current understanding of attention (including its various types) nor the importance of developmental aspects of attention are frequently covered in training early career researchers, especially those whose primary area of research in not attention. My goal is to provide a review that will be useful especially to those new to research in the subfield of attention. Sustained attention in adults and children has been well-studied, but a review of the history of thought on the development of reflexive attention with a focus on infancy is overdue. Therefore, I draw primarily on historical and modern literature and clarify confusing terminology as it has been used over time. I conclude with examples of how cognitive development research can contribute to scientific and applied progress.
Archival power, silences, and absences profoundly shape and structure postcolonial landscapes, spaces, and urban environments by controlling bodies, histories, and interactions. This book explores pathways to dismantle these imperial entanglements by developing methodologies and plural epistemologies through an interdisciplinary dialog between history, memory politics, critical theory, and archival practice together with the fields of the built environment, landscape, urban studies, architecture, and the arts. Unearthing traces catalyzes critical discussions that not only challenge the objectivity and dismantle the neutrality surrounding current archival practices and archival institutions, but also question what constitutes the archive itself. The book unearths potential histories and minor narratives buried by the imperial production of pasts and silences. The diverse range of contributions in the book offers original research, discussions, positions, and tools and provides a critical resource for scholars, architects, artists, activists, and archivists who want to engage with landscapes and built environments in a critical and postcolonial perspective in relation to archival materials and practices.
Archival power, silences, and absences profoundly shape and structure postcolonial landscapes, spaces, and urban environments by controlling bodies, histories, and interactions. This book explores pathways to dismantle these imperial entanglements by developing methodologies and plural epistemologies through an interdisciplinary dialog between history, memory politics, critical theory, and archival practice together with the fields of the built environment, landscape, urban studies, architecture, and the arts. Unearthing traces catalyzes critical discussions that not only challenge the objectivity and dismantle the neutrality surrounding current archival practices and archival institutions, but also question what constitutes the archive itself. The book unearths potential histories and minor narratives buried by the imperial production of pasts and silences. The diverse range of contributions in the book offers original research, discussions, positions, and tools and provides a critical resource for scholars, architects, artists, activists, and archivists who want to engage with landscapes and built environments in a critical and postcolonial perspective in relation to archival materials and practices.
This paper provides an account of the debate between Wilhelm Wundt and Richard Avenarius on the definition of psychology. It shows that – despite the fame of the former as the founder of experimental psychology – it was the latter who first defined this science on the basis of the experimental method. Moreover, the paper reconstructs how Avenarius elevated physiological experiment to the rank of a paradigm, using it to define not only psychology but also the relationships between this science and knowledge in general. In so doing, Avenarius elaborated a groundbreaking conception of psychology that anticipated several topics of later debate on this science. Finally, we will show how Avenarius’ attention to the interactions between philosophy, psychology, and the concrete practice of science can still be instructive today.
The paper explores Durkheim?s ambivalent position towards psychology, drawing on his debates with Comte, Tarde, and Wundt. In addressing this issue, we propose different types of anti-psychologism in sociology: epistemological (excluding psychological dimensions from sociological explanations), institutional (denying psychology the status of science), and strategic (establishing sociology as a scientific field). The analysis shows that Durkheim?s strategic anti-psychologism was more prominent and comprehensive than his epistemological anti-psychologism. Durkheim was against psychologism in sociology, but he incorporated psychological dimensions into his theory (cognitivism). He opted for a clear distinction between sociological and psychological fields, but he accepted psychology as an academic discipline (unlike Comte) and even incorporated some ideas from Wundt?s psychology. Durkheim?s position was determined by historical developments in the emerging social sciences. The competition between the neighbouring academic fields asked for ?distinction?. At the same time, shifting paradigms in psychology resulted in converging positions (Durkheim and Wundt). We argue that a common perception of Durkheim?s anti-psychologism has overshadowed his nuanced approach to psychological factors in his work. It has also determined the long-term ?fear of psychologism? and a lack of relevant psychological perspective in sociology.
Tanto a ideia de uma psicologia experimental quanto a realização de experimentos psicológicos já estão presentes no século 18. Contudo, é no século 19, primeiramente nas universidades alemãs, que a psicologia experimental adquire um novo estatuto, marcando fortemente a identidade da nova psicologia. O objetivo do presente artigo é apresentar uma reflexão de caráter histórico filosófico sobre a natureza da psicologia experimental, com base nas contribuições de Fechner, Wundt e James. Depois de apresentar sua dimensão histórica, discutimos sua relação com a psicologia experimental contemporânea, no sentido de esclarecer se elas podem iluminar de
alguma forma seu caminho futuro. Concluímos que um diálogo efetivo depende da modificação de certas condições estruturais do modelo atual de formação do psicólogo.
Russo Krauss reconstructs Richard Avenarius’ intellectual career, from the early relationship with Wilhelm Wundt to the development of his philosophical system: Empiriocriticism. At first, Avenarius and Wundt collaborated to spread experimental psychology in the philosophical faculties. Later, Avenarius designed a philosophical foundation for a radically physiological experimental psychology. By distinguishing the first-person perspective from the third-person perspective, Avenarius tried to reconcile the apparently contradictory assumptions that all knowledge begins with consciousness (phenomenalism) and that consciousness depends on the brain. Psychology is thus defined not as the science of inner experience (an error that Avenarius called “introjection”), rather as the science that studies experience from the perspective of its dependency upon the nervous system.
In 1955, Norbert Wiener suggested a sociological model according to which all forms of culture ultimately depended on the temporal coordination of human activities, in particular their synchronization. The basis for Wiener’s model was provided by his insights into the temporal structures of cerebral processes. This article reconstructs the historical context of Wiener’s ‘brain clock’ hypothesis, largely via his dialogues with John W. Stroud and other scholars working at the intersection of neurophysiology, experimental psychology, and electrical engineering. Since the 19th century, physiologists and psychologists have been conducting experimental investigations into the relation between time and the brain. Using innovative instruments and technologies, Stroud rehearsed these experiments, in part without paying any attention at all to the experimental traditions involved. Against this background, this article argues that the novelty of Wiener’s model relies largely on his productive rephrasing of physiological and psychological findings that had been established long before the Second World War.
Alfred Lehmann (1858–1921) was the pioneer of experimental psychology in Denmark. Educated as a natural scientist, he spent the winter of 1885–1886 in Wundt's laboratory in Leipzig. Upon his return to Copenhagen he established the Laboratory of Psychophysics, one of the oldest laboratories of psychology in the world. It would soon become associated with the University of Copenhagen, where Lehmann gained a position in 1890. Lehmann was a tireless experimenter in his laboratory and an important contributor to experimental psychology in its first decades. At the outset of his scientific career, Lehmann focused mainly on the bodily correlates of mental states, emotions in particular. He was an early critic of the James–Lange theory of emotions. Lehmann was also an ardent critic of claims of the paranormal and did experimental work where he attempted to establish the “psychophysical conditions” for the widespread belief in superstition and magic at the turn of the 20th century. Near the end of his career, Lehmann embarked on work in applied psychology, simultaneously realizing his dream of establishing psychology as an independent subject at the University of Copenhagen in 1918. His new curriculum for a master's degree in psychology emphasized experimental and applied work, free of the field's earlier ties to philosophy. Lehmann's turn to applied psychology was instrumental in the success of his curricular reform of psychology education.
Empirical work on color and psychological functioning has a long history, dating back to the 19th century. This early research focused on five different areas: Arousal, physical strength, preference, time perception, and attention. In the present paper, I overview the relations observed in this early research, and detail methodological weaknesses therein. I then trace subsequent 20th and 21st century developments in these research areas, in terms of both content and methods. Finally, I extend the review to cover the full breadth of research in this domain of inquiry, and provide guidelines for interpreting existing work and conducting future work. Thus, this historically based review tells us much about research on color and psychological functioning, including where it started, where it has been, where it is, and where it can go.
The histories of aestheticism and the modern sciences share surprising origins in nineteenth-century conceptions of the mind, brain, and feeling. But scholarship has yet to comprehend the twin roots of aestheticism and science in full, with the efect of obscuring some of the period's most creative and politically important legacies. Witness Walter Pater: Critic, novelist, and lead theorist of the aesthetic movement in Britain. Scholars have hailed Pater as championing literature's power to release readers from the brute forces of the material world. Pater's rejection of science-his disrespect for "the fact-based methods of scientiic reason" (Teukolsky) and "the complacent law of reason" (Donoghue 5)-seems vital to his signiicance. He appears to anticipate a formalist poetics of literature, celebrating the experience of beautiful feelings for its own sake and promising liberation from an ascendant reign of quantiication, objectivity, and instrumental reason. But we misread Pater by branding him an iconoclastic idealist. Far from polarizing aestheticism and science, Pater systematically structured the two as interdependent categories, casting them within a shared understanding of beauty and its transformative ethical ends.
First, I will show how Wundt’s conception of psychology fits his classification of the sciences in general, as well as his theory of the evolution of knowledge and of experience. Second, I will analyze the division of psychology into two main branches, experimental psychology and Völkerpsychologie, as a further development of his theory of experience. Third, I will demonstrate the continuity between, on the one hand, Wundt’s central psychological concepts and principles, and on the other, his logical and epistemological assumptions. Finally, I will discuss Wundt’s conception of the will (der Wille) and its role in his psychological project.
This chapter describes Edgar Rubin’s education in experimental psychology in the laboratory of Alfred Lehmann (1858–1921), the pioneer of experimental psychology in Denmark. Lehmann, a natural scientist, had trained with Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig and became a pioneer of psychophysiology and an enormously productive researcher. Some major aspects of his research are discussed, such as on the physiological concomitants of psychological states, including the emotions, as well as his criticisms of spiritualism. Lehmann was Edgar Rubin’s most important mentor at the University of Copenhagen in the years 1905–1910. Under Lehmann’s tutelage, Rubin conducted a study on the perception of warmth leading to his first published scientific paper. During his student years at the University of Copenhagen, Rubin led a discussion group known as Ekliptika that counted among its members the physicist Niels Bohr.
In 1912 Henri Piéron (1881-1964) became Chairman of the Physiological Psychology Laboratory at the Sorbonne after the death of Alfred Binet (1857-1911). Meanwhile, he decided to refocus his research in the field of psychochronometry with the use of two of the most famous tools for measuring reaction times (RTs) : The Hipp chronoscope and the d’Arsonval chronometer. Although German and American psychologists have flavored the use of the chronoscope invented by Matthäus Hipp (1813-1893), the French psychologists have used preferably, due to its maneuverability and its portability, the chronometer invented in 1886 by Jacques Arsène d’Arsonval (1851-1940). Accordingly to these two devices, which are presented in the first part of this paper, that Piéron studied the law enunciated by Wundt in 1874. According to this law RTs vary inversely with the intensity of the stimulation, and even more quickly in threshold region. Piéron has been the first to mathematically formulate this law, known now as Piéron’s Law, and applied for the different sensory modalities. According to Piéron’s law, the decay of RTs is hyperbolic in nature ; reaching a plateau where it is then no longer influenced by intensity, the decrease is inversely proportional to some power of the stimulus intensity. Piéron’s law is still widely cited in current work in psychophysiology.
In this masterful intellectual and cultural biography of Denman Ross (1853-1935), the American design theorist, educator, art collector, and painter who taught at Harvard for over 25 years, Marie Frank has produced a significant artistic resurrection. An important regional figure in Boston's fine arts scene (he remains one of the largest single donors to the collections of the MFA to this day), Ross was a friend and colleague of Arthur Wesley Dow, Bernard Berenson, Jay Hambidge, and others. He gained national and international renown with his design theory, which ushered in a shift from John Ruskin's romantic naturalism to the formalist aesthetic that characterizes modern art and architecture. Ross's theory attracted artists, Arts and Crafts artisans, and architects, and helped shape architectural education, scholarship, and museum practices. This biography of an important intellectual figure is also a fascinating and illuminating guide to a pivotal point in American cultural history and a reminder of the days when Boston was America's salon.
After its foundation, the Laboratory for Experimental Psychology at Leipzig University became an international center for psychological research, attracting students from all over the world. The Russian physiologist and psychiatrist Vladimir Bekhterev (1857-1927) was one of Wilhelm Wundt's students in 1885, and after returning to Russia he continued enthusiastically his experimental research on mental phenomena. However, he gradually distanced himself from Wundt's psychological project and developed a new concept of psychology: the so-called Objective Psychology or Psychoreflexology. The goal of this paper is to analyze Bekhterev's position in relation to Wundt's experimental psychology, by showing how the former came to reject the latter's conception of psychology. The results indicate that Bekhterev's development of a philosophical program, including his growing interest in establishing a new Weltanschauung is the main reason behind his divergence with Wundt, which is reflected in his conception of scientific psychology. Despite this, Wundt remained alive in Bekhterev's mind as an ideal counterpoint.
:This article traces the complex interconnections between new, neurological concepts of sensory lag and the formal and conceptual concerns of sensation novels in the mid-Victorian period. Concepts of sensory delay developed when scientists first measured the velocity of the nerves in 1850, a startling breakthrough that revealed an interval between physical stimuli and their resolution in consciousness. But while scientific popularizers emphasized the morbid, even emasculating effects of sensory delay, I show how novelists such as Wilkie Collins would insist upon its more positive potentials. In Armadale (1866), Collins conceived an alternative masculinity defined by nervous irresolution rather than rational action--a strategy that was wedded deeply to Collins' ideas about both popular fiction and about the developing vocation of the professional male novelist.
The American Journal of Psychology (AJP) was founded in 1887 by G. Stanley Hall during what Edwin G. Boring (1950) called the Period of Mental Chronometry and, consistent with the prevailing interests of the time, featured articles of relevance to scientists in this research domain. Contained in the early volumes of AJP were several articles that examined what have become some of the enduring issues faced by researchers studying the structure and timing of mental processing using reaction time (RT) procedures. Collectively, RT research published in AJP during its early years contributed to establishing mental chronometry as an important subfield of psychology. From 1900 to 1950 interest in mental chronometry waned, during what has been called its Dark Age. Nonetheless, interest in the effects of factors such as age and intelligence on total RT continued unabated. Numerous articles pertinent to these effects appeared in AJP. Finally, with the publication of Neisser's (1963) seminal work on visual search, AJP played an important role in reviving interest in mental chronometry in the latter half of the 20th century and continues in its 125th year of existence to contribute pertinent articles on contemporary research in mental chronometry.
Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) believed that consciousness was represented by the interconnection of psychical processes comprised
of temporal elements and compounds. To explore these processes, Wundt used a metronome to measure the amount of information
that passed into consciousness across time. The current project replicated some of his procedures, to better understand the
role of introspection and the complexity of the metronome task for experimenters and observers. The results of the replication
were mixed, but the replication helped provide insights into Wundt’s procedures and their relationship to his theories.
The ‘Reaction experiment with Hipp chronoscope’ is one of the classical experiments of modern psychology. This paper investigates the technological contexts of this experiment. It argues that the development of time measurement and communication in other areas of science and technology (astronomy, the clock industry) were decisive for shaping the material culture of experimental in psychology. The chronoscope was constructed by Matthäus Hipp (1813–1893) in the late 1840s. In 1861, Adolphe Hirsch (1830–1901) introduced the chronoscope for measuring the ‘physiological time’ of astronomical observers. Hirsch’s observatory at Neuchâtel (Switzerland) served to control the quality of clocks produced in the nearby Jura mountains. Hipp provided the observatory with a telegraphic system that sent time signals to the centers of clock production. Time telegraphy constituted the stable surroundings of the reaction time experiments carried out by both astronomers and psychologists. This technology permitted precise measurements of short time intervals and offered to Hirsch, as well as to Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920), a useful metaphor for conceptualizing their respective ‘epistemic objects’. But time telegraphy also limited the possibilities of the experimental work conducted within its framework. In particular, noise from outside and inside the research sites at Neuchâtel, Leipzig and elsewhere disturbed the precise communication of time.
Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison's recent book on the history of scientific objectivity showed that, over the course of the nineteenth century, natural scientists of many stripes became intensely concerned with the issue of the distorting influence that their own subjectivities might be having on their observations and representations of nature. At very nearly the same time, experimental psychology arose specifically to investigate scientifically the nature and structure of subjective consciousness. Although Daston and Galison briefly discussed some basic psychological issues-especially the discovery of differences in human color perception-they did not strongly connect the widespread European concern with scientific objectivity to the rise of experimental psychology. This essay critically examines the theoretical and empirical activities of the experimental psychologist who most energetically strove to discover the structure of subjective conscious experience, Edward Bradford Titchener. Titchener's efforts to produce an objective study of subjectivity reveal important tensions in early experimental psychology and also serve to situate experimental psychology at the center of an important intellectual struggle that was being waged across the natural sciences in the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century.
Abstract Toward the end of the 1840s, Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) began to investigate experimentally the propagation of stimuli
within nerves. Helmholtz’s experiments on animals and human subjects opened a research field that in the following decades
was intensively explored by neurophysiologists and experimental psychologists. Studying the concrete experimental settings
and their local contexts shows how deeply the work of Helmholtz, Adolphe Hirsch (1830–1901), Franciscus Donders (1818–1889)
and others was embedded in the history of culture and technology. In particular, the rapidly growing technologies of electromagnetism,
which gave rise to telegraphy and electric clocks, facilitated the time measurements of 19th-century physiologists and psychologists.
However, the transition from frogs to human beings as model organisms confronted the time-measuring psychophysiologists with
a whole range of experimental parameters that were difficult to control (temperature, attention etc.). It is no wonder then
that it took some 20 years before this branch of research stabilised.
According to the commonly accepted view, Galileo Galilei devised in 1638 an experiment that seemed able to show that the velocity of light is finite. An analysis of archival material shows that two decades later members of the Florence scientific society Accademia del Cimento followed Galileo guidelines by actually attempting to measure the velocity of light and suggesting improvements. This analysis also reveals a fundamental difference between Galileo's and Florence academy's methodologies and that Galileo's experiment was, in some respects, a pioneering work affecting also the history of the psychology of perception.
Alfred Lehmann (1858-1921) was the pioneer of experimental psychology in Denmark. He established a laboratory of psychophysics in Copenhagen in 1886 after spending a winter in Wundt's laboratory. Philosophical psychology had been taught for the better part of the nineteenth century at the University of Copenhagen and had enjoyed a positivistic turn with the philosophers Harald Høffding (1843-1931) and Kristian Kroman (1846-1925). Shortly after establishing his laboratory, Lehmann criticized Høffding's theory of "unmediated recognition," which led to a sharp dispute between them on the nature of recognition. It has been claimed that this was a direct cause of Lehmann's slow advance at the University of Copenhagen. Archival sources show that Høffding, though having a very different conception of psychology from Lehmann, was on most occasions supportive of Lehmann and thus played an important role in establishing experimental psychology at the University of Copenhagen. (c) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
This article unveils some previously unknown facts about the short life of Max Friedrich (1856-1887), the author in 1881 of the first PhD dissertation on experimental psychology, written under the supervision of Wilhelm Wundt: "On the Duration of Apperception for Simple and Complex Visual Stimuli." The article describes Friedrich's family background and life, professional career as a teacher, and works in psychology and mathematics.
Gabriele Buccola, since his untimely death, often has been mentioned as the first Italian psychologist who developed a strict program of laboratory research. Buccola, a Sicilian of Albanian ancestry, is a “case” in the history of Italian psychology. A self-taught positivist, he established a relation with the major representatives of the European positivism. Kraepelin mentions him as one of the precursors of his project of applying experimental psychology to psychopathology. Buccola actually carried out research on the psychological, chemical-biological, and psychopathological “modifiers” of reaction times, following an experimental program dealing mainly with the differential study both of basic and superior psychological processes, with mental hygiene ends. Historians of psychology agree in considering Buccola the first Italian laboratory psychologist to plan a program of research that was close to European psychological experimentalism.
The present article, starting from an outline of Buccola's role in the rising Italian scientific psychology, recontextualizes his experimentalism in an international sphere. This operation, which is carried out through a careful survey of Buccola's entire production—both theoretical and more properly scientific—is based on the search of the Darwinian, Spencerian, and Haeckelian evolutionist themes emerging from Buccola's program of research—a program that was influenced by the variegated European experimental panorama and characterized by the vision of science as a knowledge capable of transforming the nature of man and of society.
Constructing the Subject traces the history of psychological research methodology from the nineteenth century to the emergence of currently favored styles of research in the second quarter of the twentieth century. Kurt Danziger considers methodology to be a kind of social practice rather than simply a matter of technique. Therefore his historical analysis is primarily concerned with such topics as the development of the social structure of the research relationship between experimenters and their subjects, as well as the role of the methodology in the relationship of investigators to each other in a wider social context. The book begins with a historical discussion of introspection as a research practice and proceeds to an analysis of diverging styles of psychological investigation. There is an extensive exploration of the role of quantification and statistics in the historical development of psychological research. The influence of the social context on research practice is illustrated by a comparison of American and German developments, especially in the field of personality research. In this analysis, psychology is treated less as a body of facts or theories than a particular set of social activities intended to produce something that counts as psychological knowledge under certain historical conditions. This perspective means that the historical analysis has important consequences for a critical understanding of psychological methodology in general.
In trying to assess the problematic contribution to the scientific and professional establishment of psychology, we must be careful to give due respect to the traditional role of a German scholar. Wundt's psychology is situated in an extensive physiological and philosophical system. He extended the limits of philosophy as traditionally conceived to include the advances of the natural and cultural sciences. Ironically, he succeeded almost too well, for his students - and the entire course of higher education - moved rapidly toward a high degree of disciplinary differentiation. That Wundt did not advocate psychology as an autonomous discipline is telling.
The term “introspective psychology” is misleading in that it covers a variety of diverging positions on the theory and practice of introspection. From the beginning there was a basic discrepancy between the British and the German philosophic tradition, w77th the former relying more exclusively on introspection than the latter. Wilhelm Wundt's advocacy and use of introspection was extremely circumscribed and essentially limited to simple judgments tied to external stimulation. During the first decade of the twentieth century some experimental psychologists, notably E. B. Titchener and the Würzburg School, greatly enlarged the scope of introspection, ushering in the brief vogue of “systematic introspection.” The latter never gained wide support in North America and was supplanted in Germany by developments that do not constitute “introspective psychology” in any precise sense.
Wundt initiated the first systematic psychological research programme. This achievement occurred at the same time as his elaboration of a philosophy of science which was anti-inductivist and stressed the priority of explanatory motives. Specifically psychological explanations depended on concepts of psychological causality as manifested in apperceptive or volitional processes. The major differences between the Wundtian and other models of psychological experimentation can be understood in the light of this general approach. Thus experimenters and subjects had to be enlightened collaborators and the role of introspection was more significant in an explanatory than in a purely observational context. Wundt's special requirements for the psychological experiment led him to reject other early models as exemplified by the hypnotic experiment in which the experimenter-subject relationship was closer to what was to become the norm in the twentieth century.
During the past half century, it has become traditional to consider Wundt’s theoretical contributions to psychology almost entirely in terms of problems of sensation and perception or, at most, in terms of general problems of cognition. This was a function of the historians’ biases and interests rather than any reflection of Wundt’s own position. For Boring (1942), who constituted the most influential source during this period, the area of sensation and perception was of supreme interest; it was the one area that merited a major historical text on the same level as the more general History of Experimental Psychology. However, this special concern with sensation and perception was not merely an expression of the particular research interests of one individual. More significantly, the concentration of historical interest on this area made it possible to use historical studies to project an image of psychology as an experimental discipline whose more recent historical development showed essentially the kind of cumulative linear progress that was accepted as the hallmark of the natural sciences (O’Donnell, 1979).
The first book-length publication in its field, this text combines a significant contribution to the history of science and scientific method, a synthesis of research in an area in which many new discoveries compel revision of present concepts, and the statement of a fresh point of view for psychology. The concept of neural inhibition is traced in the works of physiologists and psychologists, raising to new prominence such nearly forgotten names as Anstie, Brunton, and Tucker, and examining reasons why their contributions were not incorporated into scientific advance. The enormous body of relevant neurophysiological research is condensed, including an extensive statement of contributions by past and contemporary Russian scientists. Principles governing nervous inhibition are stated in
Inhibition and Choice, and then applied to problems of plasticity in behavior, including clinical problems of mental defect, behavior disorder, and anxiety, as well as fundamental theoretical issues. Effects of drugs on behavior are interpreted. The result is the formulation of a new scheme for conceptualization of the organization of behavior. Careful documentation through an extensive reference list. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This book provides a foundation to the principles of psychology. It draws upon the natural sciences, avoiding metaphysics, for the basis of its information. According to James, this book, assuming that thoughts and feelings exist and are vehicles of knowledge, thereupon contends that psychology, when it has ascertained the empirical correlation of the various sorts of thought or feeling with definite conditions of the brain, can go no farther as a natural science. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The experiments reported in this article were carried out in the Toronto Laboratory in 1892-93. Three questions were set for research, all of them bearing on the question of the degree of relativity of reaction times: either the difference of a single individual's times, according as there were subjective (attention) or objective (qualitative stimulus) changes in the conditions of his reaction; or the differences of reaction times for different individuals under identical conditions. Subjects' sensory and motor reactions as well light and dark reactions to sound are discussed. It is concluded that the results indicate the existence of persons whose sensory reactions to sound are shorter than their motor reactions, and that there is in some individuals a difference between the length of the motor reaction, according as it is made in the light or in the dark, we may make some general remarks on the theory of these differences. These results should be compared with earlier ones, a matter which is made easier by reference to the concise summing up of the literature of the subject by Titchener in
Mind (1895). The general result follows (if this hypothesis get acceptance) that the reaction-time experiment becomes of use mainly as a method. Distinctions supposed to be established once for all by various researches must be considered as largely individual results, inasmuch as the authors have not reported on the type of the reagent. But for that very reason these results may have great value, as themselves indicating in each case this very thing, the type of one single reagent, and in so far some of the general characteristics of that type. What we now desiderate in a great many departments, as, for example, in the treatment of school children, and in the diagnosis of complex mental troubles, is just some method of discovering the type of the individual in hand. If reactions vary in certain great ways, according to the types which they illustrate, then in reaction experimentation we have a great objective method of study. But before the method can be called in any way complete, there should be a detailed re-investigation of the whole question, with a view to the great distinctions of mental type already made out by the pathologists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The present volume is an attempt to bridge the gulf between pre-experimental and experimental epochs in America, and to fill in the gaps, to some extent, in both the too brief and the deliberately circumscribed histories of psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined the general nature of reaction time, in terms of attention and habit. Four Ss participated in the study. The Hipp chronoscope was used in order to record the RT. The experiments included responses by the hand, foot, and lips to auditory and visual stimulations in sensory and motor forms. The effects of light, darkness, and practice were studied. It was found that in a particular sensory 'type', the sensory form of the reaction was shorter than the motor, even after the latter had emerged in consciousness. Continued practice did not widen the time difference at the first manifest, between the 2 forms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Describes a unified experimental approach to the study of the mind based on experiments in the time course of human information processing. New studies on the role of intensity in information processing, on vigilance, and on orienting and detecting are presented. A historical introduction to mental chronometry together with an integration of performance and physiological techniques for its study are provided. (15 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This book makes no attempt to rewrite the whole history of psychology, which in general has been well recounted by others, but it aims to supplement the standard textbooks in the field because of their lack of information concerning Catholic participation in psychology. Our volume is intended, therefore, as supplementary reading primarily for students in Catholic colleges and universities, especially for those who are studying the history of psychology and systematic psychology. We have concentrated on pointing out those who did the pioneer work in psychology among Catholics. We hope that a book of this sort will stimulate greater participation of Catholics in psychology. Because of the difficulty of obtaining adequate information, the book obviously has omissions and inadequacies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The importance of laboratory instruments as sources for the writing of the history of psychology is stressed, and illustrated through the use of examples where their study has been profitable. Most importantly, the role of the Hipp chronoscope in the reaction-time experiment is discussed, and the importance of various changes introduced into its design by James McKeen Cattell is shown. A photograph, first exhibited by the Department of Psychology of Clark University at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago is included, and further illustrates the importance of these instruments to historians.
The present paper presents an edited translation of the first doctoral thesis in experimental psychology, completed by Max Friedrich at Leipzig University during the Winter Semester of 1879–80. The official degree was awarded in 1880 and the full text was published in the first issue of Wundt's journal Philosophische Studien (Philosophical Studies). In addition to a translation of the original text, the author provides a critical analysis of the methodology and results of Friedrich within the context of modern psychophysics.
Experimental psychology was introduced at the University of Louvain in 1891 under the influence of Dsir J. Mercier, a philosopher, who wanted to bridge the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas with experimental psychology. As the head of the philosophy program at the Louvain University, Mercier sent Armand Thiry, his collaborator, to Leipzig in order to acquaint him with Wundt's physiological psychology and laboratory. Upon his return from Germany Thiry organized a psychological laboratory at the Louvain University and offered a course in psychophysiology. Thiry headed the experimental program at Louvain for over ten years but he was more interested in philosophical and theoretical problems than in laboratory investigations. His successor, Albert Michotte, was wholeheartedly committed to laboratory experimentation and research. He also studied in Leipzig but was more influenced by Klpe than by Wundt. Under Michotte's leadership, which lasted over 50 years, Louvain laboratory became one of the most active and original research centers in Europe.
6., umgearb. Aufl. Bd. 1. 1908. 15, 725 s. -- Bd. 2. 1910. 8, 782 s. -- Bd. 3. 1911. 11, 810 s.
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Berkeley, 1987. Includes bibliographical references. Microfilm. s
Reaction-time: A study in attention and habit
- J R Angell
- A W Moore
- J. R. Angell
Psychometrische Untersuchungen
- J M Cattell