History of Experimental Psychology

Course Information

• Course Title: History of Experimental Psychology
• University: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
• City: Milan
• Instructor: Claudia Repetto

Table of Contents (TOC)

• Precursors
• Wundt and Structuralism
• James and Functionalism
• Freud and Psychoanalysis
• Watson and Behaviorism
• Gestalt
• Penfield and the Biological Perspective
• Cognitivism

Timeline of Main Events and People

• 1879: Wilhelm Wundt establishes the first experimental psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig. This is considered the start of psychology as an independent scientific field.
• 1860 - 1900: Important figures in the development of psychology include Descartes (1596 - 1650), and Gall (1758 - 1828) and others.
• 1913: J.B. Watson's article marks the beginning of behaviorism.
• 1935: Koffka publishes "Principles of Gestalt Psychology".
• 1955: Wilder Penfield's work in neuroscience.
• 1977: The concept of "Cognitive Sciences" emerges.

F.J. Gall and Phrenology

• Gall proposed that cognitive functions are localized in specific brain areas.
• Innate faculties develop corresponding brain areas that grow and deform.
• Skull morphology can indicate personality traits through identified peculiarities in the brain regions.

Wundt and Structuralism

• Psychology's focus is on unmediated personal experiences.
• These experiences correlate with mental processes, running alongside objectively measurable stimuli and responses.
• Apperception is the basic mental activity, involving the identification, qualification, and synthesis of conscious sensations.
• Introspection is the research method used. It involves subjects describing their consciousness in response to precisely controlled stimuli.

Wundt and Structuralism (Continued)

• Purpose of research: capture variations in unmediated experiences as stimuli change.
• Research Method: Introspection. Wundt believed introspection allowed investigation into states of consciousness in controlled lab settings. Wundt presented subjects with measurable stimuli and asked them to describe their responses in detail (sensations, images, emotions, etc).

Limitations of Introspection

• Accessibility issues existed with specific individuals (e.g., children, mentally ill).
• Subjectivity and inaccessibility to others' introspections further limited generalizability.

Structuralism's Aim

• Structuralism aimed to break down the mind into its most basic psychological processes, like mental chemistry.
• These basic processes combine to form more complex mental functions.
• Mental activity is not considered a substance but a set of processes.

James and Functionalism

• James's theory, Functionalism, contrasted with Structuralism. It was interested in mental processes' functions rather than their content.
• Consciousness is considered a continuous flow, not a series of elements.
• Early functionalists viewed psychology as exploring how minds function and the causality of mental processes.

James and Functionalism (Continued)

• Attention on "function" was stimulated by Darwin's evolutionary studies.
• Mental processes, the product of evolution, must be studied as wholes, not fragmented into inconsequential elements.
• Functionalism influenced developmental and animal psychology.

James and Functionalism (Continued)

• Functionalism sought pragmatic application and was opposed to purely theoretical psychology.
• Psychology moved increasingly into applied fields with the development of tests (e.g., Cattell).
• Concepts like work psychology and the role of psychological factors in work emerged.

Freud and Psychoanalysis

• Freud emphasized the unconscious mind.
• The unconscious mind, as a real driving force of the human psyche, manifests in slips, dreams, and seemingly random events.
• The "iceberg metaphore" illustrates this concept, representing conscious, preconscious, and unconscious layers.

Freud and Psychoanalysis (Continued)

• The mind is divided into three parts: the id, ego, and superego.
• The id seeks immediate pleasure.
• The ego mediates between the id and the external world.
• The superego represents internalized morals.

Watson and Behaviorism

• Psychology's focus is on observable behaviors.
• Introspection is considered subjective and invalid.
• Behaviors are linked to environmental stimuli.

Watson and Behaviorism (Continued)

• The process of learning, including conditioning and reinforcement, is central to observable behavior.
• The classic 'Little Albert' experiment exemplifies this behavioral approach.

Gestalt Psychology

• Gestalt, emerging in early 20th-century Europe, differed from those approaches that segmented the mind.
• It emphasizes the importance of the whole and not just the parts.
• The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Gestalt Psychology (Continued)

• Key figures like Wertheimer are associated with the development of Gestalt psychology and its study of apparent motion (stroboscopic motion).
• Gestalt psychology mainly examines areas like thinking and perception.
• A phenomenological experimental approach evaluates perceptual changes linked to physical stimulus characteristics.

Gestalt Psychology (Continued)

• Experience impacts the orientation of mental processes; however, basic processes are not determined by experience but rather by innate factors.
• Insight, a sudden understanding in problem-solving, is relevant to the nature of learning.

Wilder G. Penfield and the Biological Perspective

• The biological perspective, emphasizing the link between the brain's chemical activity and behavior, is examined.
• His contributions to our understanding of neurological functions and their link to both mental and behavioral processes.
• Emphasized the brain's chemical activity's role in influencing human processes.

Cognitivism

• The mind is viewed as an active information processor, contrasting with less active views.
• Cognitivism proposed that mental activity is an important area of study, counterbalancing the more behaviorally oriented approaches.

Cognitivism (Continued)

• The TOTE model of problem solving is critical to understanding information processing.
• The model’s “Test-Operate-Test-Exit” protocol is a cyclic process in problem-solving which includes steps like testing the process, operating the action, then testing again until satisfactory.

Cognitivism (Continued)

• The "mind-computer analogy" and the concept of "information processing" are significant.
• This led to a more ecological view.
• The emergence of "cognitive science" as a separate discipline, along with alternative approaches like modularism and connectionism.

Modularism

• The mind's activity is described as the generation of internal representations.
• External stimuli become representations.
• Processes for transformation to internal units are performed by "modules." (Fodor, 1983).

Connectionism

• Connectionism, or neural networking, is a way to model neural processes in the brain emphasizing the interconnections of multiple units.
• Information passes to the units from input to hidden units then the output units.
• Backwards propagation updates weights of interconnections based on target comparison and output mismatches.

Neural Networks: Applications

• Modeling cognitive processes.
• Simulating learning.
• Modeling deficits or impairments.

Neural Networks: Advantages

• Well-defined hypotheses are encouraged.
• Rigorous study of mental processes is better supported.
• Models for internal mental process manipulations related to deficits are possible.