CHAPTER 6 – GERMAN
PSYCHOLOGISTS OF THE 19TH
& EARLY 20TH CENTURIES
Dr. Nancy Alvarado
German Rivals to Wundt





Ernst Weber & Gustav Fechner -- psychophysicists
Hermann Ebbinghaus -- memory
Franz Brentano
Carl Stumpf
Oswald Kulpe
Weber & Fechner
Ernst Weber (1795-1878)

Weber published “De tactu” describing the minimum
amount of tactile stimulation needed to experience
a sensation of touch – the absolute threshold.
 Using
weights he found that holding versus lifting them
gave different results (due to muscles involved).

He used a tactile compass to study how two-point
discrimination varied across the body.
 On
the fingertip .22 cm, on the lips .30 cm,
on the back 4.06 cm.
Aesthesiometric compass
Just Noticeable Difference (JND)

Weber studied how much a stimulus must change in
order for a person to sense the change.
 How
much heavier must a weight be in order for a
person to notice that it is heavier?
 This amount is called the just noticeable difference JND
 The JND is not fixed but varies with the size of the
weights being compared.

JND can be expressed as a ratio:
DR
k
R
where R is stimulus magnitude and k is a constant and
DR means the change in R (D usually means change)
Gustav Fechner (1801-1887)


Fechner related the physical and psychological
worlds using mathematics.
Fechner (1860) said:
“Psychophysics, already related to physics by name
must on one hand be based on psychology, and [on] the
other hand promises to give psychology a mathematical
foundation.” (pp. 9-10)

Fechner extended Weber’s work because it
provided the right model for accomplishing this.
Fechner’s Contribution


Fechner called Weber’s finding about the JND
“Weber’s Law.”
Fechner’s formula describes how the sensation is
related to increases in stimulus size: S  k log R
where S is sensation, k is Weber’s constant and R is the
magnitude of a stimulus


The larger the stimulus magnitude, the greater the
amount of difference needed to produce a JND.
He used catch trials to study guessing.
Relationship of JND to Stimulus
S.S. Stevens modified
Fechner’s Log Law to a
Power Function in the
early 1950’s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevens%27_power_law
Fechner’s Legacy


His methods are still used in psychophysics.
Ideas from signal detection theory have been
applied to a wide variety of other topics.
 Threshold


for criminal behavior, scenic beauty.
Scaling techniques, including rating scales, were
placed on a sound scientific basis, especially by S.S.
Stevens later work, continued by Luce & Narens.
His speculations about split-brain studies were
confirmed by Sperry.
Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)

Ebbinghaus was inspired by finding a copy of
Fechner’s “Elements of Psychophysics.”
 He
wanted to apply Fechner’s methods to study of
higher mental processes.


In 1877, he began developing procedures for
studying memory.
His major work, “Fundamentals
of Psychology,” is dedicated to
Fechner – “I owe everything to you.”
Early Academic Career

Ebbinghaus had no mentor to teach him techniques
so he developed his own, highly original methods.
 He
had no lab, no access to subjects, so he performed
most experiments on himself.

He followed rigorous experimental rules and spent
4 years replicating his first series of experiments.
 These

were well received and widely recognized.
His nonsense syllables were developed to avoid
word familiarity, using a permutation formula.
 19
consonants, 11 vowels, 11 consonants = 2299
Ebbinghaus Experiments

First, he studied the relationship between the
amount of material to be memorized and the time
needed to learn it to complete mastery.
 His

measure was number of repetitions needed.
Second, he studied the effects of different amounts
of learning on memory.
 His
measure was savings – repetitions needed to
relearn the original items after a delay.
 As repetitions increase, so does relearning time saved –
overlearning helps.
Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve

His best known experiment studied the effects of
passage of time on memory – his forgetting curve.
In addition to graphing his
data he developed a
mathematical model by
writing a logarithmic
equation and deriving the
parameters using the
least squares method.
He also compared means
and variability and tested
whether their differences
exceeded chance.
Other Investigations

Ebbinghaus studied the relative effects on memory
of spaced versus massed practice, part versus
whole, and active versus passive learning.
 Active,


spaced learning was most effective.
He found that meaningful material was much easier
to learn and remember than material without
meaning – Don Juan poem vs nonsense syllables.
Lists learned before sleep were better retained.
Ebbinghaus’s Contributions

This was the first time a higher mental function had
been studied experimentally.
 His
book is “one of the most remarkable research
achievements in the history of psychology” Roediger.


His success established a paradigm for studying
memory that was used for the next 90 years.
An ecological approach later challenged this:
 Ulric
Neisser challenged validity of lab tasks.
 Bahrick studied long-lasting memories.
 Banaji & Crowder defended lab-based studies.
An Applied Problem


Breslau schools were concerned that children were
too tired during an uninterrupted 8-1 school day.
Griesbach tested mental fatigue and irritability
using a two-point discrimination task.
 He

proposed the day be broken into 2 short segments.
Ebbinghaus disagreed because the measurement of
sensory discrimination has little to do with mental
activity, introducing the concept of content validity.
 He
developed analogy and completion test items to
measure intelligence, later included in IQ tests by Binet.
Franz Brentano (1838-1917)


Brentano was a Dominican priest and lecturer at the
Univ. of Wurzburg who left his position after writing
a scholarly critique of the doctrine of papal
infallibility.
During the next 6 years he taught at
the University of Vienna and
published a textbook:“Psychology
from an Empirical Standpoint.”
Comparison to Wundt



Brentano studied Aristotle and put more emphasis
on logical examination than experimental results.
As a result, Brentano’s ideas were fixed and did not
change, because neither logic nor premises change.
Instead of studying the products of mental actions,
as Wundt did, Brentano’s act psychology studied
the processes and mental actions themselves.
 Brentano
did not use introspection (inner observation) –
it was impossible because the act of observing changes
what is observed, retrospection (memory) was possible.
Brentano’s Ideas About Mental Acts

Three fundamental classes of mental acts:
 Ideating,

judging, loving (versus hating)
Mental acts may have as their objects past
sensations (an idea of an object not present) using
memory and imagination (Locke’s Reflection).
 It
is possible to feel an emotion when the object of that
emotion is not present.
 One mental act may have as its object another mental
act – judgments about judgments.
Brentano in Perspective

Brentano is not as well-known as Wundt because he
wrote less and had personal problems.
 He



did very little experimental research.
His main importance is his formulation of a rival
approach to Wundt’s.
His psychology of acts was a precursor to the
American functionalists.
Two of his students (Stumpf & von Ehrenfels)
influenced the later Gestalt psychologists.
Carl Stumpf (1848-1936)


Stumpf was a talented musician who composed and
performed throughout his life, mixing with musicians.
Brentano changed his life by teaching him to think
logically and empirically.
 Brentano
encouraged him to transfer and study under
Lotze, a German perceptual theorist.

He became a priest but left the seminary over
papal infallibility, but not the church like Brentano.
 Lotze
got him a job at the Univ. of Gottingen where he
worked with Weber and Fechner.
The Golden Section

Two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio of
the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is
equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the
smaller one:
ab a
 
a
b

Stumpf conducted experiments studying whether this
“golden section” ratio was aesthetically pleasing.
Stumpf’s Early Work

Stumpf gained a reputation for youthful brilliance
by publishing a nativist explanation of depth
perception.
 He

opposed Berkeley, Helmholtz, Wundt & Lotze.
He proposed that although “local signs” contribute
to depth perception they are of secondary
importance.
 The
interpretive action of a higher center in the brain is
most important.

He paralleled Kant’s view of the nature of space.
Stumpf’s Tone Psychology

Like Brentano, Stumpf distinguished between
phenomena and mental functions.
 He
called sensory images, tones, colors phenomenology.
 Seeing, hearing, perceiving, thinking are cognitive acts.

He studied sounds of musical instruments, melody,
tonal fusion and consonance/dissonance of tones.
 He


compared musical and non-musical people.
His volume “Tone Psychology” appeared in 1883.
This led to prestigious academic appointments.
Debunking Sensational Phenomena


In 1903-4, Stumpf challenged the likelihood of a
machine that could change photographs of sound
waves into sounds.
In 1904 he chaired a commission to investigate the
claims of Clever Hans, the horse who could count.
 His
student, Oskar Pfungst, tested Hans when his owner
knew the answer and again when he did not.
 The horse was correct 98% of the time in the first
condition but 8% correct in the second condition.
 He was correct 89% without blinkers, 6% with blinkers.
Clever Hans & Von Osten
Von Osten was
convinced that
horses had inner
speech and thus
could do math.
Stumpf’s Later Years





His later years were sad.
WWI emptied the university of young men who left
to serve in the armed forces.
War also disrupted his relationships with colleagues
throughout Europe, including British, American and
Russians, and caused his work to be overlooked.
He was asked to organize psychologists to support
the war effort but his heart wasn’t in the task.
He retired in 1921, succeeded by Kohler.
Oswald Kulpe (1862-1915)

Kulpe studied history but became interested in
psychology after hearing Wundt speak at Leipzig.
 At
Wundt’s recommendation he went to Gottingen to
study with Muller (Lotze’s successor as chair).
 Muller followed Fechner’s psychophysics and studied
memory (interference) with Ebbinghaus – developing
techniques for avoiding experimenter bias & demand.

After graduating, he performed experiments
challenging assumptions of Wundt & Titchener,
although he had warm affection for Wundt.
Kulpe’s Experimental Psychology

Kulpe was influenced by Mach’s positivist
philosophical views – all science is based on
experience and naturalistic sensory observation.
 Mentalistic
conceptions and attributions of mental
entities are to be avoided.
 Psych needs objective descriptions of mental events.
 Kulpe tried to demonstrate that higher mental functions
could be studied experimentally.

Kulpe’s research provided a foundation for
contemporary cognitive psychology.
The “Wurzburg School”




Founded by Kulpe & his students.
Subjects were asked about free associations using a
method of questioning called “Ausfrage.”
Marbe studied “conscious attitudes” of subjects
judging weights – doubt, hesitation, searching.
Kulpe & Bryan (Clark University) showed that
subjects could abstract features of nonsense
syllables as an active mental act “apprehension.”
 Count
the “F”s in a sentence.
Investigations of Reaction Time


Wurzburg psychologists asked how very fast,
volitional reaction times could occur without being
part of the subject’s mental experience.
Watts used a more precise Hipp chronoscope &
broke reaction times into four parts:
 (1)
preparatory period, (2) stimulus presentation, (3)
striving for the response, (4) the response itself.

Based on introspection, the thinking takes place
during the preparatory period (instructions),
establishing a subject “set.”
More Wurzburg Findings

Using systematic experimental introspection, Ach
found consistent differences between subjects –
called decision types.
 Binet

claimed priority based on descriptions of his kids.
Later (1907), Buhler asked questions requiring
thoughtful replies, not just “yes/no” answers.
 Subjects
described imageless thought, where answers
just came to them.
 Wundt claimed he was not using introspection correctly.
 Kulpe & Moore claimed meaning is distinct from image.
Lost German Psychologists

Why are only Ebbinghaus, Weber & Fechner well
known?
 WWI
disrupted others’ work and international contacts.
 WWII destroyed the German universities.
 Politics prevented communication between German and
American psychologists.


Cognitive psychology might have developed much
sooner without this interruption.
Only Gestalt psychology took root because some
fled Nazi Germany and took refuge in America.