Early German Psychologists
1
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
2
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
3
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
4
Gustav Fechner

Built upon the ideas of Weber

Developed 3 important research methods



Method of limits
Method of constant stimuli
Method of adjustment
5
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
6
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
7
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
8
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
9
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
10
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
11
Ebbinghaus as a Foundation for
Binet


He developed analogy tests and completion tests
to test children
Analogy example


Completion example



July is to May as Saturday is to
Big things are heavier than
.
.
Child’s answer timed and evaluated for
appropriateness
Similar items used by Binet in his intelligence
tests
12
Franz Brentano


Important but not well known
Dominican priest who left the church
because of his inability to accept the
infallibility of the pope
13
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
14
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
15
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
16
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
17
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”
18
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
19
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
20
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
21
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
22