William Wundt and Experimental Psychology

William Wundt and Experimental Psychology

William Wundt (1832-1920) is known as the "Father of Experimental Psychology" for his various contributions on the field - most especially, for establishing the first laboratory dedicated to psychology at the University of Leipzig in 1879.

Wundt adhered to the idea of psychophysical parallelism, that "every physical event has a mental counterpart, and every mental event has a physical counterpart" (Reiber & Robinson, 2001). He also believed that psychological events can be scrutinized under experimental methodology if the stimuli and reactions are measurable. Wundt believed that problems that can be brought under tight experimental control are appropriate for laboratory study. And the attributes of immediate conscious experience are no exception as subject of investigation inside the laboratory.

One of Wundt's methods is introspection. Though, distorted views of this method abound especially in introductory psychology textbooks. Wundt considered a distinction between self-observation (Selbstbeobachtung) and internal perception (innere Wahrnehmung). But later on, distinction between self-observation and internal perception was confused, and these two have generally been translated as "introspection."

Wundt defines self-observation as the "traditional and commonsense meaning for introspection - a detailed reflection on one's experiences in life, an activity known to philosophers for ages." On the other hand, Wundt takes internal perception to mean "a more precise process of responding immediately to some specific event" (Davis, 2003).

Wundt prefers the method of internal perception over self-observation since the latter is too susceptible to bias. Thus, he allowed only internal perception in his laboratory. Wundt trained several observers whose task is to react in highly-standardized laboratory experiments. In these experiments, the observers give simple verbal reports limited to diagnostic such as size, intensity, and duration of physical stimulus (Danziger, 1980 as cited in Davis, 2003). Note that these responses are same ones found in psychophysics and reaction time experiments.

In some texts, claims have been made that Wundt's student, E.B Titchener, has championed the idea of introspection. Truly, Titchener and Wundt shared generally similar views. But as to introspection, Wundt "used introspection to describe experimental stimuli," whereas Titchener "used introspection to describe the nature of conscious experience" (Zehr, 2000).

Titchener's idea of introspection, which was later known as "systematic experiment introspection," involved an observer undergoing an experimental task and afterwards giving a detailed verbal report as to the mental processes that transpired during the task. Titchener was aware of the possible effects of bias, as well as of faulty memory, on introspection. But he believed that the problem with bias can be remedied by preparing relatively simple tasks, by exercising strict standardization, and by extensively repeating the task within and between subjects. As for the problem with faulty memory, Titchener acknowledged that introspection is the similar with retrospection.

Titchener's version of introspection is similar to Wundt's idea of self-observation. And since Wundt denied self-observation a spot in his laboratory because of its being highly susceptible to bias, he also rejected Titchener's systematic experiment introspection. Caution must be exercised to avoid taking Wundt's introspection to be a single idea, instead of it being split to internal perception and self-observation. Caveat, also, in taking Wundt's introspection and Titchener's systematic experiment introspection to be the same.

Wundt used introspection (specifically internal perception) as a primary tool in his then-newly-established experimental psychology since it provided a way to tap an individuals' cognition - an entity not directly observable, and was once thought by some to be impossible to observe. Introspection served as a tool in understanding mental processes, in the context of the laboratory and under experimental methodology. With introspection, it became possible to scrutinize not only the physical event, but also the event's mental counterpart.