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152-660: Cognition is the "mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception , attention , thought , imagination , intelligence , the formation of knowledge , memory and working memory , judgment and evaluation , reasoning and computation , problem-solving and decision-making , comprehension and production of language . Cognitive processes use existing knowledge to discover new knowledge. Cognitive processes are analyzed from different perspectives within different contexts, notably in

304-498: A kymograph . The observed differences were intended to contribute towards supporting Wundt's theory of emotions with its three dimensions: pleasant – unpleasant, tense – relaxed, excited – depressed. Wilhelm Wundt's Völkerpsychologie. Eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythus und Sitte ( Social Psychology. An Investigation of the Laws of Evolution of Language, Myth, and Custom , 1900–1920, 10 Vols.) which also contains

456-459: A basic action it is not just important what the agent can do but what the agent actually does. So raising one's right hand may only count as a basic action if it is done directly through the right hand. If the agent uses her left hand to lift the right hand then the raising of the right hand is not a basic action anymore. A contrasting view identifies basic actions not with bodily movements but with mental volitions. One motivation for this position

608-443: A branch of social psychology , the term is used to explain attitudes , attribution , and group dynamics . However, psychological research within the field of cognitive science has also suggested an embodied approach to understanding cognition. Contrary to the traditional computationalist approach, embodied cognition emphasizes the body's significant role in the acquisition and development of cognitive capabilities. Human cognition

760-503: A chain smoker may have a negative impact on the health of the people around him. This is a side-effect of his smoking that is not part of his intention. The smoker may still be responsible for this damage, either because he was aware of this side-effect and decided to ignore it or because he should have been aware of it, so-called negligence . In the theory of enactivism , perception is understood to be sensorimotor in nature. That is, we carry out actions as an essential part of perceiving

912-402: A clinical setting but no lasting effects has been shown. Action (philosophy) An important distinction among actions is between non-basic actions, which are done by doing something else, and basic actions, for which this is not the case. Most philosophical discussions of actions focus on physical actions in the form of bodily movements. But many philosophers consider mental actions to be

1064-460: A content from consciousness. One reason for doubting the existence of mental actions is that mental events often appear to be involuntary responses to internal or external stimuli and therefore not under our control. Another objection to the existence of mental actions is that the standard account of actions in terms of intentions seems to fail for mental actions. The problem here is that the intention to think about something already needs to include

1216-495: A distant second and third. Wundt was born at Neckarau , Baden (now part of Mannheim ) on 16 August 1832, the fourth child to parents Maximilian Wundt (1787–1846), a Lutheran minister, and Marie Frederike, née Arnold (1797–1868). Two of Wundt's siblings died in childhood; his brother, Ludwig, survived. Wundt's paternal grandfather was Friedrich Peter Wundt (1742–1805), professor of geography and pastor in Wieblingen . When Wundt

1368-635: A distinct type of action that has characteristics quite different from physical actions. Deliberations and decisions are processes that often precede and lead to actions. Actions can be rational or irrational depending on the reason for which they are performed. The problem of responsibility is closely related to the philosophy of actions since we usually hold people responsible for what they do. Conceptions of action try to determine what all actions have in common or what their essential features are. Causalist theories, like Donald Davidson 's account or standard forms of volitionalism, hold that causal relations between

1520-459: A following in America , scientists such as Wilhelm Wundt , Herman Ebbinghaus , Mary Whiton Calkins , and William James would offer their contributions to the study of human cognition. Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) emphasized the notion of what he called introspection : examining the inner feelings of an individual. With introspection, the subject had to be careful with describing their feelings in

1672-507: A lab in 1876 to store equipment he had brought from Zurich. Located in the Konvikt building, many of Wundt's demonstrations took place in this laboratory due to the inconvenience of transporting his equipment between the lab and his classroom. Wundt arranged for the construction of suitable instruments and collected many pieces of equipment such as tachistoscopes , chronoscopes , pendulums, electrical devices, timers, and sensory mapping devices, and

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1824-463: A non-causal way. Some suggestions have been made on this issue but this is still an open problem since none of them have gathered significant support. The teleological approach, for example, holds that this relation is to be understood not in terms of efficient causation but in terms of final "causation" . One problem with this approach is that the two forms of causation do not have to be incompatible. Few theorists deny that actions are teleological in

1976-461: A number of variables that may have affected his ability to learn and recall the non-words he created. One of the reasons, he concluded, was the amount of time between the presentation of the list of stimuli and the recitation or recall of the same. Ebbinghaus was the first to record and plot a " learning curve " and a " forgetting curve ". His work heavily influenced the study of serial position and its effect on memory Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930)

2128-420: A pedestrian witnessing a terrible car accident may be morally responsible for calling an ambulance and for providing help directly if possible. Additionally to what the agent did, it is also relevant what the agent could have done otherwise, i.e. what powers and capacities the agent had. The agent's intentions are also relevant for responsibility, but we can be responsible for things we did not intend. For example,

2280-431: A philosophical approach to the study of cognition and the mind, with his Meditations he wanted people to meditate along with him to come to the same conclusions as he did but in their own free cognition. In psychology , the term "cognition" is usually used within an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions , and such is the same in cognitive engineering . In the study of social cognition ,

2432-651: A philosophy professor. In 1875, Wundt was promoted to professor of "Inductive Philosophy" in Zurich, and in 1875, Wundt was made professor of philosophy at the University of Leipzig where Ernst Heinrich Weber (1795–1878) and Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801–1887) had initiated research on sensory psychology and psychophysics – and where two centuries earlier Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz had developed his philosophy and theoretical psychology , which strongly influenced Wundt's intellectual path. Wundt's admiration for Ernst Heinrich Weber

2584-413: A strict distinction between our agency and our body, which is not how things appear to us. One way to avoid this objection is to hold that volitions constitute bodily movements, i.e. are an aspect of them, instead of causing them. Another response able to soften this objection is to hold that volitions are not just the initial triggers of the bodily movements but that they are continuous activities guiding

2736-461: A textbook on human physiology (1865, 4th ed. 1878) and a manual of medical physics (1867). He wrote about 70 reviews of current publications in the fields of neurophysiology and neurology, physiology, anatomy and histology. A second area of work was sensory physiology, including spatial perception, visual perception and optical illusions. An optical illusion described by him is called the Wundt illusion ,

2888-471: A total view of human existence from the points of view gained from this investigation." "The attribute 'physiological' is not saying that it ... [physiological psychology] ... wants to reduce the psychology to physiology – which I consider impossible – but that it works with physiological, i.e. experimental, tools and, indeed, more so than is usual in other psychology, takes into account the relationship between mental and physical processes." "If one wants to treat

3040-509: A variant of the Hering Illusion . It shows how straight lines appear curved when seen against a set of radiating lines. As a result of his medical training and his work as an assistant to Hermann von Helmholtz, Wundt knew the benchmarks of experimental research, as well as the speculative nature of psychology in the mid-19th century. Wundt's aspiration for scientific research and the necessary methodological critique were clear when he wrote of

3192-479: A variety of ways, analysed, associated and combined, as well as linked with motor and autonomic functions – not simply processed but also creatively synthesised (see below on the Principle of creative synthesis). In the integrative process of conscious activity, Wundt sees an elementary activity of the subject, i.e. an act of volition, to deliberately move content into the conscious. Insofar that this emergent activity

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3344-535: A wall, in which the jumping itself (corresponding to the triggering) is considered an action, but the falling (corresponding to the entertaining of a content) is not an action anymore since it is outside the agent's control. Candace L. Upton and Michael Brent object that this account of mental actions is not complete. Taking their lead from mental activities taking place during meditation , they argue that Strawson's account leaves out various forms of mental actions, like maintaining one's attention on an object or removing

3496-429: Is wayward if the intention caused its goal to realize but in a very unusual way that was not intended, e.g. because the skills of the agent are not exercised in the way planned. For example, a rock climber forms the intention to kill the climber below him by letting go of the rope. A wayward causal chain would be that, instead of opening the holding hand intentionally, the intention makes the first climber so nervous that

3648-461: Is a middle path possible between these two extreme positions that allows for the existence of both physical and mental actions. Various mental events have been suggested as candidates for non-physical actions, like imagining, judging or remembering. One influential account of mental action comes from Galen Strawson , who holds that mental actions consist in "triggering the delivery of content to one's field of consciousness". According to this view,

3800-669: Is an important aspect of metacognition. Aerobic and anaerobic exercise have been studied concerning cognitive improvement. There appear to be short-term increases in attention span, verbal and visual memory in some studies. However, the effects are transient and diminish over time, after cessation of the physical activity. People with Parkinson's disease has also seen improved cognition while cycling, while pairing it with other cognitive tasks. Studies evaluating phytoestrogen , blueberry supplementation and antioxidants showed minor increases in cognitive function after supplementation but no significant effects compared to placebo . Another study on

3952-416: Is being undertaken to examine the cognitive psychology of emotion; research is also focused on one's awareness of one's own strategies and methods of cognition, which is called metacognition . The concept of cognition has gone through several revisions through the development of disciplines within psychology. Psychologists initially understood cognition governing human action as information processing. This

4104-426: Is between basic and non-basic actions . This distinction is closely related to the problem of individuation since it also depends on the notion of doing one thing by or in virtue of doing another thing, like turning on a light by flipping a switch. In this example, the flipping of the switch is more basic than the turning-on of the light. But the turning-on of the light can itself constitute another action, like

4256-418: Is closely related to the aforementioned study and conclusion of the memory experiments conducted by Hermann Ebbinghaus. William James (1842–1910) is another pivotal figure in the history of cognitive science. James was quite discontent with Wundt's emphasis on introspection and Ebbinghaus' use of nonsense stimuli. He instead chose to focus on the human learning experience in everyday life and its importance to

4408-440: Is conscious and unconscious , concrete or abstract , as well as intuitive (like knowledge of a language) and conceptual (like a model of a language). It encompasses processes such as memory , association , concept formation , pattern recognition , language , attention , perception , action , problem solving , and mental imagery . Traditionally, emotion was not thought of as a cognitive process, but now much research

4560-509: Is gathered through observation and conscientious experimentation. Two millennia later, the groundwork for modern concepts of cognition was laid during the Enlightenment by thinkers such as John Locke and Dugald Stewart who sought to develop a model of the mind in which ideas were acquired, remembered and manipulated. During the early nineteenth century cognitive models were developed both in philosophy —particularly by authors writing about

4712-403: Is inevitable, or they are not, in which case there would be no need to posit them as an explanatory inert " ghost in the machine ". But it has been suggested that this constitutes a false dilemma : that volitions can play an explanatory role without leading to a vicious regress . John Stuart Mill , for example, avoids this problem by holding that actions are composed of two parts: a volition and

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4864-414: Is learned first still has to go through a retrieval process. This experiment focuses on human memory processes. The word superiority effect experiment presents a subject with a word, or a letter by itself, for a brief period of time, i.e. 40 ms, and they are then asked to recall the letter that was in a particular location in the word. In theory, the subject should be better able to correctly recall

5016-424: Is problematic since it threatens to lead to a vicious regress : if something is an action because it was caused by a volition then we would have to posit one more volition in virtue of which the first trying can be regarded as an action. An influential criticism of the volitional explanations of actions is due to Gilbert Ryle , who argued that volitions are either active , in which case the aforementioned regress

5168-587: Is still greatly hampered by misunderstandings, stereotypes and superficial judgements. Wilhelm Wundt conducted experiments on memory, which would be considered today as iconic memory, short-term memory, and enactment and generation effects. Psychology is interested in the current process, i.e. the mental changes and functional relationships between perception , cognition , emotion , and volition / motivation . Mental (psychological) phenomena are changing processes of consciousness . They can only be determined as an actuality , an "immediate reality of an event in

5320-481: Is that he has prostate cancer, another is that they have his favorite newspaper in the waiting area. Abdul is aware of both of these reasons, but he performs this action only because of the former reason. Causalist theories can account for this fact through causal relation: the former but not the latter reason causes the action. The challenge to non-causalist theories is to provide a convincing non-causal explanation of this fact. The problem of individuation concerns

5472-517: Is that volitions are the most direct element in the chain of agency: they cannot fail, unlike bodily actions, whose success is initially uncertain. One argument against this position is that it may lead to a vicious regress if it is paired with the assumption that an earlier volition is needed in order for the first volition to constitute an action. This is why volitionists often hold that volitions cause actions or are parts of actions but are not full actions themselves. Philosophers have investigated

5624-482: Is that we often do one thing by doing another thing: we shoot the gun by pulling the trigger or we turn on the light by flipping the switch. One argument against this view is that the different events may happen at different times. For example, Lincoln died of his injuries the following day, so a significant time after the shooting. This raises the question of how to explain that two events happening at different times are identical. An important distinction among actions

5776-426: Is the time it takes for a participant to identify whether a green circle is present or not, should not change as the number of distractors increases. Conjunctive searches where the target is absent should have a longer reaction time than the conjunctive searches where the target is present. The theory is that in feature searches, it is easy to spot the target, or if it is absent, because of the difference in color between

5928-459: Is to hold that basic actions correspond to the most simple commands we can follow. This position excludes most forms of muscle contractions and chemical processes from the list of basic actions since we usually cannot follow the corresponding commands directly. What counts as a basic action, according to this view, depends on the agent's skills. So contracting a given muscle is a basic action for an agent who has learned to do so. For something to be

6080-879: Is to precisely analyse the processes of consciousness, to assess the complex connections ( psychische Verbindungen ), and to find the laws governing such relationships. Wundt's concepts were developed during almost 60 years of research and teaching that led him from neurophysiology to psychology and philosophy. The interrelationships between physiology, philosophy, logic, epistemology and ethics are therefore essential for an understanding of Wundt's psychology. The core of Wundt's areas of interest and guiding ideas can already be seen in his Vorlesungen über die Menschen- und Tierseele (Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology) of 1863: individual psychology (now known as general psychology, i.e. areas such as perception, attention, apperception, volition, will, feelings and emotions); cultural psychology (Wundt's Völkerpsychologie) as development theory of

6232-478: Is typical of all mental processes, it is possible to describe his point-of-view as voluntaristic. Wundt describes apperceptive processes as psychologically highly differentiated and, in many regards, bases this on methods and results from his experimental research. One example is the wide-ranging series of experiments on the mental chronometry of complex reaction times . In research on feelings, certain effects are provoked while pulse and breathing are recorded using

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6384-464: The Shared intentionality approach, the mother shares the essential sensory stimulus of the actual cognitive problem with the child. By sharing this stimulus, the mother provides a template for developing the young organism's nervous system. Recent findings in research on child cognitive development and advances in inter-brain neuroscience experiments have made the above proposition plausible. Based on them,

6536-477: The Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft (Journal for Cultural Psychology and Linguistics) in 1860, which gave this field its name. Wundt (1888) critically analysed the, in his view, still disorganised intentions of Lazarus and Steinthal and limited the scope of the issues by proposing a psychologically constituted structure. The cultural psychology of language, myth, and customs were to be based on

6688-420: The frontal cortex of the brain system – in line with today's thinking. Apperception exhibits a range of theoretical assumptions on the integrative process of consciousness. The selective control of attention is an elementary example of such active cognitive, emotional and motivational integration. The fundamental task is to work out a comprehensive development theory of the mind – from animal psychology to

6840-504: The philosophy of mind —and within medicine , especially by physicians seeking to understand how to cure madness. In Britain , these models were studied in the academy by scholars such as James Sully at University College London , and they were even used by politicians when considering the national Elementary Education Act 1870 ( 33 & 34 Vict. c. 75). As psychology emerged as a burgeoning field of study in Europe , whilst also gaining

6992-416: The psychological construct of Shared intentionality , highlighting its contribution to cognitive development from birth. This primary interaction provides unaware collaboration in mother-child dyads for environmental learning. Later, Igor Val Danilov developed this notion, expanding it to the intrauterine period and clarifying the neurophysiological processes underlying Shared intentionality . According to

7144-706: The shared intentionality hypothesis introduced the notion of pre-perceptual communication in the mother-fetus communication model due to nonlocal neuronal coupling. This nonlocal coupling model refers to communication between two organisms through the copying of the adequate ecological dynamics by biological systems indwelling one environmental context, where a naive actor (Fetus) replicates information from an experienced actor (Mother) due to intrinsic processes of these dynamic systems ( embodied information ) but without interacting through sensory signals. The Mother's heartbeats (a low-frequency oscillator) modulate relevant local neuronal networks in specific subsystems of both her and

7296-461: The 15th century, where it meant " thinking and awareness". The term comes from the Latin noun cognitio ('examination', 'learning', or 'knowledge'), derived from the verb cognosco , a compound of con ('with') and gnōscō ('know'). The latter half, gnōscō , itself is a cognate of a Greek verb, gi(g)nósko ( γι(γ)νώσκω , 'I know,' or 'perceive'). Despite

7448-1025: The Englishman Charles Spearman ; the Romanian Constantin Rădulescu-Motru (Personalist philosopher and head of the Philosophy department at the university of Bucharest ), Hugo Eckener , the manager of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin – not to mention those students who became philosophers (like Rudolf Eisler or the Serbian Ljubomir Nedić ). – Students (or visitors) who were later to become well known included Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev (Bechterev), Franz Boas , Émile Durkheim , Edmund Husserl , Bronisław Malinowski , George Herbert Mead , Edward Sapir , Ferdinand Tönnies , Benjamin Lee Whorf . Much of Wundt's work

7600-730: The Germans Oswald Külpe (a professor at the University of Würzburg), Ernst Meumann (a professor in Leipzig and in Hamburg and a pioneer in pedagogical psychology), Hugo Münsterberg (a professor in Freiburg and at Harvard University , a pioneer in applied psychology), and cultural psychologist Willy Hellpach , and the Armenian Gourgen Edilyan . The Americans listed include James McKeen Cattell (the first professor of psychology in

7752-584: The Heidelberg University's staff, becoming an assistant to the physicist and physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz in 1858 with responsibility for teaching the laboratory course in physiology. There he wrote Contributions to the Theory of Sense Perception (1858–1862). In 1864, he became associate professor for anthropology and medical psychology and published a textbook about human physiology. However, his main interest, according to his lectures and classes,

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7904-528: The United States), Granville Stanley Hall (the father of the child psychology movement and adolescent developmental theorist, head of Clark University ), Charles Hubbard Judd (Director of the School of Education at the University of Chicago), Walter Dill Scott (who contributed to the development of industrial psychology and taught at Harvard University), Edward Bradford Titchener , Lightner Witmer (founder of

8056-414: The action of alerting the burglar. It is usually held that the chain or hierarchy of actions composed this way has a fundamental level at which it stops. The action at this fundamental level is called a basic action : it is not done by doing something else. For this reason, basic actions are simple while non-basic actions are complex. It is often assumed that bodily movements are basic actions , like

8208-658: The afternoon of Tuesday, August 3" (p. 1). Wundt is buried in Leipzig's South Cemetery with his wife, Sophie, and their daughters, Lilli and Eleanor. Wundt was awarded honorary doctorates from the Universities of Leipzig and Göttingen , and the Pour le Mérite for Science and Arts. He was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Wundt was an honorary member of 12 scientific organizations or societies. He

8360-402: The agent performed the action. The most straightforward answer to this question cites the agent's desire. For example, John went to the fridge because he had a desire for ice cream. The agent's beliefs are another relevant feature for action explanation. So the desire to have ice cream does not explain that John went to the fridge unless it is paired with John's belief that there is ice cream in

8512-419: The agent's mental states and the resulting behavior are essential to actions. According to Davidson, actions are bodily movements that are caused by intentions in the right way. Volitionalist theories include the notion of volitions in their account of actions. Volitions are understood as forms of summoning of means within one's power and are different from merely intending to do something later. Non-causalists, on

8664-463: The agent's role in the production of action. This role could include reflecting on what to do, choosing an alternative and then carrying it out. Another objection is that mere intentions seem to be insufficient to cause actions, that other additional elements, namely volitions or tryings, are necessary. For example, as John Searle has pointed out, there seems to be a causal gap between intending to do something and actually doing it, which needs an act of

8816-549: The aid of general psychology in this regard: the development history of the mind and comparative psychology." The Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie ( Main Features of Physiological Psychology ) on general psychology is Wundt's best-known textbook. He wanted to connect two sciences with one another. "Physiology provides information on all phenomena of life that can be perceived using our external senses. In psychology humans examine themselves, as it were, from within and look for

8968-420: The beginning of cognition is memory storage about the relevant ecological dynamics by the naive nervous system (i.e., memorizing the ecological condition of relevant sensory stimulus) at the molecular level – an engram . Evidence derived using optical imaging , molecular-genetic and optogenetic techniques in conjunction with appropriate behavioural analyses continues to offer support for the idea that changing

9120-451: The beginning of the sequence, called the primacy effect , and information at the end of the sequence, called the recency effect . Consequently, information given in the middle of the sequence is typically forgotten, or not recalled as easily. This study predicts that the recency effect is stronger than the primacy effect, because the information that is most recently learned is still in working memory when asked to be recalled. Information that

9272-399: The belief that mental properties are reducible to physical properties are known as token-identity reductionists. Some have disagreed with the conclusion that this reduction means the mental explanations are causally impotent while still maintaining that the reduction is possible. For example, Dretske has put forward the viewpoint of reasons as structuring causes. This viewpoint maintains that

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9424-431: The bodily movement corresponding to it. Volitions can also be used to explain how the agent knows about her own action. This knowledge about what one is doing or trying to do is available directly through introspection: the agent does not need to observe her behavior through sensory perception to arrive at this knowledge, unlike an external observer. The experience of agency involved in volitions can be distinguished from

9576-417: The bodily movements while they are occurring. Non-causalist or anti-causalist theories deny that intentions or similar states cause actions. They thereby oppose causalist theories like Davidson's account or standard forms of volitionalism. They usually agree that intentions are essential to actions. This brings with it the difficulty of accounting for the relation between intentions and actions in

9728-406: The building as part of the campus until 1883. The laboratory grew and encompassed a total of eleven rooms. The Psychological Institute, as it became known, eventually moved to a new building that Wundt had designed specifically for psychological research. The list of Wundt's lectures during the winter terms of 1875–1879 shows a wide-ranging programme, 6 days a week, on average 2 hours daily, e.g. in

9880-447: The burglar then alerting the burglar is part of the agent's actions. In an example from Anscombe 's manuscript Intention , pumping water can also be an instance of poisoning the inhabitants. One difficulty with theories of action that try to characterize actions in terms of causal relations between mental states and bodily movements, so-called causalist theories , is what has been referred to as wayward causal chains. A causal chain

10032-431: The complete works, however, a close relationship between Wundt's theoretical psychology, epistemology and methodology can be seen. English translations are only available for the best-known works: Principles of physiological Psychology (only the single-volume 1st ed. of 1874) and Ethics (also only 1st ed. of 1886). Wundt's work remains largely inaccessible without advanced knowledge of German. Its reception, therefore,

10184-435: The concept of actions mostly in regard to physical actions, which are usually understood in terms of bodily movements. It is not uncommon among philosophers to understand bodily movements as the only form of action. Some volitionists, on the other hand, claim that all actions are mental because they consist in volitions. But this position involves various problems, as explained in the corresponding section above. However, there

10336-643: The connections between these processes to explain which of them represent this inner observation." "With sufficient certainty the approach can indeed be seen as well-founded – that nothing takes place in our consciousness that does not have its physical basis in certain physiological processes.". Wundt believed that physiological psychology had the following task: "firstly, to investigate those life processes that are centrally located, between external and internal experience, which make it necessary to use both observation methods simultaneously, external and internal, and, secondly, to illuminate and, where possible, determine

10488-474: The considerations of both complement one another in the sense that only together can they create for us a potential empirical knowledge." He claimed that his views were free of metaphysics and were based on certain epistemological presuppositions , including the differentiation of subject and object in the perception, and the principle of causality. With his term critical realism , Wundt distinguishes himself from other philosophical positions. Wundt set himself

10640-409: The construction of human thought or mental processes. Jean Piaget was one of the most important and influential people in the field of developmental psychology . He believed that humans are unique in comparison to animals because we have the capacity to do "abstract symbolic reasoning". His work can be compared to Lev Vygotsky , Sigmund Freud , and Erik Erikson who were also great contributors in

10792-405: The construction of human thought or mental processes. Research shows the intentional engagement of fetuses with the environment, demonstrating cognitive achievements. However, organisms with simple reflexes cannot cognize the environment alone because the environment is the cacophony of stimuli (electromagnetic waves, chemical interactions, and pressure fluctuations). Their sensation is too limited by

10944-406: The content of the thought. So the thought is no longer needed since the intention already "thinks" the content. This leads to a vicious regress since another intention would be necessary to characterize the first intention as an action. An objection not just to mental actions but to the distinction between physical and mental actions arises from the difficulty of finding strict criteria to distinguish

11096-411: The creation of joint intellectual results that are of generally recognised value" are to be examined. Stimulated by the ideas of previous thinkers, such as Johann Gottfried Herder , Johann Friedrich Herbart , Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Wilhelm von Humboldt (with his ideas about comparative linguistics ), the psychologist Moritz Lazarus (1851) and the linguist Heymann Steinthal founded

11248-505: The development of a new psychological study method, and facilitated his development into the prominent psychological figure he is today. Wundt studied from 1851 to 1856 at the University of Tübingen , at the University of Heidelberg , and at the University of Berlin . After graduating as a doctor of medicine from Heidelberg (1856), with doctoral advisor Karl Ewald Hasse , Wundt studied briefly with Johannes Peter Müller , before joining

11400-403: The development of thought, language, artistic imagination, myths, religion, customs, the relationship of individuals to society, the intellectual environment and the creation of intellectual works in a society. "Where deliberate experimentation ends is where history has experimented on the behalf of psychologists." Those mental processes that "underpin the general development of human societies and

11552-707: The disciplines of cognitive science . Metacognition is an awareness of one's thought processes and an understanding of the patterns behind them. The term comes from the root word meta , meaning "beyond", or "on top of". Metacognition can take many forms, such as reflecting on one's ways of thinking, and knowing when and how oneself and others use particular strategies for problem-solving . There are generally two components of metacognition: (1) cognitive conceptions and (2) cognitive regulation system. Research has shown that both components of metacognition play key roles in metaconceptual knowledge and learning. Metamemory , defined as knowing about memory and mnemonic strategies,

11704-497: The distractor task, they are asked to recall the trigram from before the distractor task. In theory, the longer the distractor task, the harder it will be for participants to correctly recall the trigram. This experiment focuses on human short-term memory . During the memory span experiment , each subject is presented with a sequence of stimuli of the same kind; words depicting objects, numbers, letters that sound similar, and letters that sound dissimilar. After being presented with

11856-401: The effects of herbal and dietary supplements on cognition in menopause show that soy and Ginkgo biloba supplementation could improve women's cognition. Exposing individuals with cognitive impairment (i.e. dementia ) to daily activities designed to stimulate thinking and memory in a social setting, seems to improve cognition. Although study materials are small, and larger studies need to confirm

12008-408: The emergence principle (creative synthesis), the principle of unintended side-effects (heterogony of ends) and the principle of contrast (see section on Methodology and Strategies ). The ten volumes consist of: Language (Vols. 1 and 2), Art (Vol. 3), Myths and Religion (Vols. 4 – 6), Society (Vols. 7 and 8), Law (Vol. 9), as well as Culture and History (Vol. 10). The methodology of cultural psychology

12160-405: The events of imagining, judging or remembering are not mental actions strictly speaking but they can be the products of mental actions. Mental actions, in the strict sense, are prefatory or catalytic : they consist in preparing the mind for these contents to arise. They foster hospitable conditions but cannot ensure that the intended contents will appear. Strawson uses the analogy of jumping off

12312-708: The evolution of Arts, Law, Society, Culture and History , is a milestone project, a monument of cultural psychology , of the early 20th century. The dynamics of cultural development were investigated according to psychological and epistemological principles. Psychological principles were derived from Wundt's psychology of apperception (theory of higher integrative processes, including association, assimilation , semantic change ) and motivation (will), as presented in his Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie (1908–1910, 6th ed., 3 Vols.). In contrast to individual psychology, cultural psychology aims to illustrate general mental development laws governing higher intellectual processes:

12464-407: The experience of freedom, which involves the additional aspect of having various alternative routes of action to choose from. But volition is possible even if there are no additional alternatives. Volitionalists usually hold that there is a causal relation between volitions and bodily movements. Critics have pointed out that this position threatens to alienate us from our bodies since it introduces

12616-487: The field of developmental psychology. Piaget is known for studying the cognitive development in children, having studied his own three children and their intellectual development, from which he would come to a theory of cognitive development that describes the developmental stages of childhood. Studies on cognitive development have also been conducted in children beginning from the embryonal period to understand when cognition appears and what environmental attributes stimulate

12768-576: The field of experimental psychology. In 1867, near Heidelberg, Wundt met Sophie Mau (1844–1912). She was the eldest daughter of the Kiel theology professor Heinrich August Mau  [ de ] and his wife Louise, née von Rumohr, and a sister of the archaeologist August Mau . They married on 14 August 1872 in Kiel. The couple had three children: Eleanor (1876–1957), who became an assistant to her father in many ways, Louise, called Lilli, (1880–1884) and Max Wundt  [ de ] (1879–1963), who became

12920-438: The fields of linguistics , musicology , anesthesia , neuroscience , psychiatry , psychology , education , philosophy , anthropology , biology , systemics , logic , and computer science . These and other approaches to the analysis of cognition (such as embodied cognition ) are synthesized in the developing field of cognitive science , a progressively autonomous academic discipline . The word cognition dates back to

13072-495: The first academic journal for psychological research, Philosophische Studien (from 1883 to 1903), followed by Psychologische Studien (from 1905 to 1917), to publish the institute's research. A survey published in American Psychologist in 1991 ranked Wundt's reputation as first for "all-time eminence", based on ratings provided by 29 American historians of psychology. William James and Sigmund Freud were ranked

13224-435: The first laboratory ever to be exclusively devoted to psychological studies, and this event marked the official birth of psychology as an independent field of study. The new lab was full of graduate students carrying out research on topics assigned by Wundt, and it soon attracted young scholars from all over the world who were eager to learn about the new science that Wundt had developed. The University of Leipzig assigned Wundt

13376-430: The first psychological clinic in his country), Frank Angell , Edward Wheeler Scripture , James Mark Baldwin (one of the founders of Princeton's Department of Psychology and who made important contributions to early psychology, psychiatry, and to the theory of evolution). Wundt, thus, is present in the academic "family tree" of the majority of American psychologists, first and second generation. – Worth mentioning are

13528-399: The form of mental causation bridging the gap between mental intention and bodily movement. Volitionalism as a theory is characterized by three core theses: (1) that every bodily action is accompanied by a trying, (2) that tryings can occur without producing bodily movements and (3) that in the case of successful tryings, the trying is the cause of the bodily movement. The central idea of

13680-513: The formulation "the human as a motivated and thinking subject" in order to characterise features held in common with the humanities and the categorical difference to the natural sciences . Influenced by Leibniz, Wundt introduced the term psychophysical parallelism as follows: "… wherever there are regular relationships between mental and physical phenomena the two are neither identical nor convertible into one another because they are per se incomparable; but they are associated with one another in

13832-500: The fridge would be considered irrational if his reason for this is bad, e.g. because his belief that there is ice cream in the fridge is merely based on wishful thinking . The problem of responsibility is closely related to the philosophy of actions since we usually hold people responsible for what they do. But in one sense the problem of responsibility is wider since we can be responsible not just for doing something but for failing to do something, so-called omissions . For example,

13984-466: The fridge. The desire together with the belief is often referred to as the reason for the action. Causalist theories of action usually hold that this reason explains the action because it causes the action. Behavior that does not have a reason is not an action since it is not intentional. Every action has a reason but not every action has a good reason. Only actions with good reasons are considered rational . For example, John's action of going to

14136-473: The function and capacity of human memory. Ebbinghaus developed his own experiment in which he constructed over 2,000 syllables made out of nonexistent words (for instance, 'EAS'). He then examined his own personal ability to learn these non-words. He purposely chose non-words as opposed to real words to control for the influence of pre-existing experience on what the words might symbolize, thus enabling easier recollection of them. Ebbinghaus observed and hypothesized

14288-436: The highest cultural achievements in language, religion and ethics. Unlike other thinkers of his time, Wundt had no difficulty connecting the development concepts of the humanities (in the spirit of Friedrich Hegel and Johann Gottfried Herder ) with the biological theory of evolution as expounded by Charles Darwin . Wundt determined that "psychology is an empirical science co-ordinating natural science and humanities, and that

14440-528: The human mind); animal psychology ; and neuropsychology . The initial conceptual outlines of the 30-year-old Wundt (1862, 1863) led to a long research program, to the founding of the first Institute and to the treatment of psychology as a discipline, as well as to a range of fundamental textbooks and numerous other publications. During the Heidelberg years from 1853 to 1873, Wundt published numerous essays on physiology, particularly on experimental neurophysiology,

14592-669: The important categories are to be emphasised in order to prevent category mistakes as discussed by Nicolai Hartmann . In this regard, Wundt created the first genuine epistemology and methodology of empirical psychology (the term philosophy of science did not yet exist). Apperception is Wundt's central theoretical concept. Leibniz described apperception as the process in which the elementary sensory impressions pass into (self-)consciousness , whereby individual aspirations (striving, volitional acts) play an essential role. Wundt developed psychological concepts, used experimental psychological methods and put forward neuropsychological modelling in

14744-403: The language of ordinary people, who merely invoked their personal experiences of life, criticized naive introspection, or quoted the influence of uncritical amateur ("folk") psychology on psychological interpretation. His Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung (1862) shows Wundt's transition from a physiologist to an experimental psychologist. "Why does not psychology follow the example of

14896-426: The laws of motion. And these two realms, that of efficient causes and that of final causes, harmonize with one another." (Monadology, Paragraph 79). Wundt follows Leibniz and differentiates between a physical causality (natural causality of neurophysiology ) and a mental ( psychic ) causality of the consciousness process. Both causalities, however, are not opposites in a dualistic metaphysical sense, but depend on

15048-446: The legs is different from intending to do it later or merely wishing to do it: only in the former case does the patient learn that the treatment was unsuccessful. There is a sense in which tryings either take place or not, but cannot fail, unlike actions, whose success is uncertain. This line of thought has led some philosophers to suggest that the trying itself is an action: a special type of action called basic action . But this claim

15200-505: The letter when it was presented in a word than when it was presented in isolation. This experiment focuses on human speech and language. In the Brown–Peterson cohomology experiment , participants are briefly presented with a trigram and in one particular version of the experiment, they are then given a distractor task, asking them to identify whether a sequence of words is in fact words, or non-words (due to being misspelled, etc.). After

15352-460: The mental states the agent invokes as justifying his action are physical states that cause the action. Problems have been raised for this view because the mental states seem to be reduced to mere physical causes. Their mental properties don't seem to be doing any work. If the reasons an agent cites as justifying his action, however, are not the cause of the action, they must explain the action in some other way or be causally impotent. Those who hold

15504-402: The mind. The development of Cognitive psychology arose as psychology from different theories, and so began exploring these dynamics concerning mind and environment, starting a movement from these prior dualist paradigms that prioritized cognition as systematic computation or exclusively behavior. For years, sociologists and psychologists have conducted studies on cognitive development , i.e.

15656-408: The most objective manner possible in order for Wundt to find the information scientific. Though Wundt's contributions are by no means minimal, modern psychologists find his methods to be too subjective and choose to rely on more objective procedures of experimentation to make conclusions about the human cognitive process. Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) conducted cognitive studies that mainly examined

15808-407: The movement of the finger flipping the switch is part of the action as well as the electrons moving through the wire and the light bulb turning on. Some consequences are included in the action even though the agent did not intend them to happen. It is sufficient that what the agent does "can be described under an aspect that makes it intentional". So, for example, if flipping the light switch alerts

15960-452: The natural sciences? It is an understanding that, from every side of the history of the natural sciences, informs us that the progress of every science is closely connected with the progress made regarding experimental methods." With this statement, however, he will in no way treat psychology as a pure natural science, though psychologists should learn from the progress of methods in the natural sciences: "There are two sciences that must come to

16112-508: The nervous system of the fetus due to the effect of the interference of the low-frequency oscillator (Mother heartbeats) and already exhibited gamma activity in these neuronal networks (interference in physics is the combination of two or more electromagnetic waveforms to form a resultant wave). Therefore, the subliminal perception in a fetus emerges due to Shared intentionality with the mother that stimulates cognition in this organism even before birth. Another crucial question in understanding

16264-455: The noise to solve the cue problem–the relevant stimulus cannot overcome the noise magnitude if it passes through the senses (see the binding problem ). Fetuses need external help to stimulate their nervous system in choosing the relevant sensory stimulus for grasping the perception of objects. The Shared intentionality approach proposes a plausible explanation of perception development in this earlier stage. Initially, Michael Tomasello introduced

16416-451: The notion of trying is found in the second thesis. It involves the claim that some of our tryings lead to successful actions while others arise without resulting in an action. But even in an unsuccessful case there is still something: it is different from not trying at all. For example, a paralyzed person, after having received a new treatment, may test if the treatment was successful by trying to move her legs. But trying and failing to move

16568-776: The oldest paradigms is the leveling and sharpening of stories as they are repeated from memory studied by Bartlett . The semantic differential used factor analysis to determine the main meanings of words, finding that the ethical value of words is the first factor. More controlled experiments examine the categorical relationships of words in free recall . The hierarchical structure of words has been explicitly mapped in George Miller 's WordNet . More dynamic models of semantic networks have been created and tested with computational systems such as neural networks , latent semantic analysis (LSA), Bayesian analysis , and multidimensional factor analysis. The meanings of words are studied by all

16720-407: The one hand, on the agent's belief that this bodily movement would turn on the light and, on the other hand, on the desire to have light. Because of its reliance on psychological states and causal relations, this position is considered to be a Humean theory of action . According to Davidson, it is not just the bodily behavior that counts as the action but also the consequences that follow from it. So

16872-405: The other hand, deny that intentions or similar states cause actions. The most well-known account of action, sometimes simply referred to as the standard account , is due to Davidson, who holds that actions are bodily movements that are caused by intentions. Davidson explains the intentions themselves in terms of beliefs and desires . For example, the action of flipping a light switch rests, on

17024-452: The peculiarities of the method as the most important factor then our science – as experimental psychology – differs from the usual science of the soul purely based on self-observation." After long chapters on the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system, the Grundzüge (1874) has five sections: the mental elements, mental structure, interactions of the mental structure, mental developments,

17176-448: The postulate of parallelism, he developed his principles of mental causality in contrast to the natural causality of neurophysiology, and a corresponding methodology. There are two fundamentally different approaches of the postulated psychophysical unit, not just two points-of-view in the sense of Gustav Theodor Fechner's identity hypothesis. Psychological and physiological statements exist in two categorically different reference systems;

17328-478: The pressing of one's finger against the trigger, while the consequences of these movements, like the firing of the gun, are non-basic actions . But it seems that bodily movements are themselves constituted by other events (muscle contractions) which are themselves constituted by other events (chemical processes). However, it appears that these more basic events are not actions since they are not under our direct volitional control. One way to solve these complications

17480-431: The principles and laws of mental causality. Through his insistence that mental processes were analysed in their elements, Wundt did not want to create a pure element psychology because the elements should simultaneously be related to one another. He describes the sensory impression with the simple sensory feelings, perceptions and volitional acts connected with them, and he explains dependencies and feedbacks. Wundt rejected

17632-500: The psychological experience". The relationships of consciousness, i.e. the actively organising processes, are no longer explained metaphysically by means of an immortal ' soul ' or an abstract transcendental ( spiritual ) principle. Wundt considered that reference to the subject (Subjektbezug), value assessment (Wertbestimmung), the existence of purpose (Zwecksetzung), and volitional acts (Willenstätigkeit) to be specific and fundamental categories for psychology. He frequently used

17784-592: The question of whether two actions are identical or of how actions should be counted. For example, on April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth both pulled the trigger of his gun, fired a shot and killed Abraham Lincoln . On a fine-grained theory of individuation , the pulling, the firing and the killing are three distinct actions. In its most extreme form, there is one distinct action for every action type. So, for example, since "singing" and "singing loudly" are two different action types, someone who sings loudly performs at least these two distinct actions. This kind of view has

17936-796: The relation, intentional properties that are created in the process of justifying one's actions are causally potent in that the process is an instance of action. When considering that actions are causally potent, Dretske claims that the process of justifying one's actions is necessarily part of the causal system. Others have objected to the belief that mental states can cause physical action without asserting that mental properties can be reduced to physical properties. Such individuals suggest that mental states are epiphenomenal, in that they have no impact on physical states, but are nonetheless distinct entities (see epiphenomenalism ). Wilhelm Wundt Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt ( / w ʊ n t / ; German: [vʊnt] ; 16 August 1832 – 31 August 1920)

18088-482: The results, the effect of social cognitive stimulation seems to be larger than the effects of some drug treatments. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been shown to improve cognition in individuals without dementia 1 month after treatment session compared to before treatment. The effect was not significantly larger compared to placebo. Computerized cognitive training, utilizing a computer based training regime for different cognitive functions has been examined in

18240-424: The rope slips through his hand and thus leads to the other climber's death. Davidson addresses this issue by excluding cases of wayward causation from his account since they are not examples of intentional behavior in the strict sense. So bodily behavior only constitutes an action if it was caused by intentions in the right way . One important objection to Davidson's theory of actions is that it does not account for

18392-411: The same for letters that sound dissimilar and short words. The memory span is projected to be shorter with letters that sound similar and with longer words. In one version of the visual search experiment , a participant is presented with a window that displays circles and squares scattered across it. The participant is to identify whether there is a green circle on the window. In the featured search,

18544-403: The sense of being goal-oriented. But the representation of a goal in the agent's mind may act as an efficient cause at the same time. Because of these problems, most of the arguments for non-causalism are negative: they constitute objections pointing out why causalist theories are unfeasible. Important among them are arguments from wayward causation: that behavior only constitutes an action if it

18696-524: The standpoint. Causal explanations in psychology must be content to seek the effects of the antecedent causes without being able to derive exact predictions. Using the example of volitional acts, Wundt describes possible inversion in considering cause and effect, ends and means , and explains how causal and teleological explanations can complement one another to establish a co-ordinated consideration. Wundt's position differed from contemporary authors who also favoured parallelism. Instead of being content with

18848-407: The stimuli, the subject is asked to recall the sequence of stimuli that they were given in the exact order in which it was given. In one particular version of the experiment, if the subject recalled a list correctly, the list length was increased by one for that type of material, and vice versa if it was recalled incorrectly. The theory is that people have a memory span of about seven items for numbers,

19000-442: The strength of connections between neurons is one of the major mechanisms by which engrams are stored in the brain. Two (or more) possible mechanisms of cognition can involve both quantum effects and synchronization of brain structures due to electromagnetic interference. The Serial-position effect is meant to test a theory of memory that states that when information is given in a serial manner, we tend to remember information at

19152-409: The study of cognition. James' most significant contribution to the study and theory of cognition was his textbook Principles of Psychology which preliminarily examines aspects of cognition such as perception, memory, reasoning, and attention. René Descartes (1596–1650) was a seventeenth-century philosopher who came up with the phrase "Cogito, ergo sum", which means "I think, therefore I am." He took

19304-414: The subject is presented with several trial windows that have blue squares or circles and one green circle or no green circle in it at all. In the conjunctive search, the subject is presented with trial windows that have blue circles or green squares and a present or absent green circle whose presence the participant is asked to identify. What is expected is that in the feature searches, reaction time, that

19456-535: The target and the distractors. In conjunctive searches where the target is absent, reaction time increases because the subject has to look at each shape to determine whether it is the target or not because some of the distractors if not all of them, are the same color as the target stimuli. Conjunctive searches where the target is present take less time because if the target is found, the search between each shape stops. The semantic network of knowledge representation systems have been studied in various paradigms. One of

19608-470: The task of redefining the broad field of psychology between philosophy and physiology, between the humanities and the natural sciences. In place of the metaphysical definition as a science of the soul came the definition, based on scientific theory, of empirical psychology as a psychology of consciousness with its own categories and epistemological principles. Psychology examines the "entire experience in its immediately subjective reality." The task of psychology

19760-426: The three main areas of general psychology: imagining and thought, feelings, and will (motivation). The numerous mental interrelations and principles were to be researched under the perspective of cultural development. Apperception theory applied equally for general psychology and cultural psychology. Changes in meanings and motives were examined in many lines of development, and there are detailed interpretations based on

19912-576: The two. Deliberations and decisions are relevant for actions since they frequently precede the action. It is often the case that several courses of action are open to the agent. In such cases, deliberation performs the function of evaluating the different options by weighing the reasons for and against them. Deciding then is the process of picking one of these alternatives and forming an intention to perform it, thereby leading toward an action. Explanations can be characterized as answers to why-questions. Explanations of actions are concerned with why

20064-515: The unintuitive consequence that even the most simple exercises of agency result in a vast number of actions. Theories of coarse-grained individuation of actions, on the other hand, hold that events that constitute each other or cause each other are to be counted as one action. On this view, the action of pulling the trigger is identical to the action of firing the gun and to the action of killing Lincoln. So in doing all of these things, Booth performed only one action. One intuition in favor of this view

20216-430: The way that certain mental processes regularly correspond to certain physical processes or, figuratively expressed, run 'parallel to one another'." Although the inner experience is based on the functions of the brain there are no physical causes for mental changes. Leibniz wrote: "Souls act according to the laws of final causes, through aspirations, ends and means. Bodies act according to the laws of efficient causes, i.e.

20368-539: The widespread association theory , according to which mental connections ( learning ) are mainly formed through the frequency and intensity of particular processes. His term apperception psychology means that he considered the creative conscious activity to be more important than elementary association. Apperception is an emergent activity that is both arbitrary and selective as well as imaginative and comparative. In this process, feelings and ideas are images apperceptively connected with typical tones of feeling, selected in

20520-521: The will to be overcome. Volitionalists aim to overcome these shortcomings of Davidson's account by including the notion of volition or trying in their theory of actions. Volitions and tryings are forms of affirming something, like intentions . They can be distinguished from intentions because they are directed at executing a course of action in the here and now, in contrast to intentions, which involve future-directed plans to do something later. Some authors also distinguish volitions , as acts of

20672-425: The will, from tryings , as the summoning of means within one's power. But it has been argued that they can be treated as a unified notion since there is no important difference between the two for the theory of action because they play the same explanatory role. This role includes both the experiential level, involving the trying of something instead of merely intending to do so later, and the metaphysical level, in

20824-605: The winter term of 1875: Psychology of language , Anthropology , Logic and Epistemology ; and during the subsequent summer term: Psychology , Brain and Nerves, as well as Physiology . Cosmology , Historical and General Philosophy were included in the following terms. Wundt was responsible for an extraordinary number of doctoral dissertations between 1875 and 1919: 185 students including 70 foreigners (of whom 23 were from Russia, Poland, and other east-European countries and 18 were from America). Several of Wundt's students became eminent psychologists in their own right. They include

20976-496: The word cognitive itself dating back to the 15th century, attention to cognitive processes came about more than eighteen centuries earlier, beginning with Aristotle (384–322 BCE) and his interest in the inner workings of the mind and how they affect the human experience. Aristotle focused on cognitive areas pertaining to memory, perception, and mental imagery. He placed great importance on ensuring that his studies were based on empirical evidence, that is, scientific information that

21128-410: The world. Alva Noë states: 'We move our eyes, head and body in taking in what is around us... [we]: crane our necks, peer, squint, reach for our glasses or draw near to get a better look...'...'Perception is a mode of activity on the part of the whole animal...It cannot be represented in terms of merely passive, and internal, processes...' Some philosophers (e.g. Donald Davidson ) have argued that

21280-500: Was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, one of the fathers of modern psychology . Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and biology , was the first person to call himself a psychologist . He is widely regarded as the "father of experimental psychology ". In 1879, at the University of Leipzig , Wundt founded the first formal laboratory for psychological research . This marked psychology as an independent field of study. He also established

21432-673: Was a corresponding member of 13 academies in Germany and abroad. For example, he was elected an International Member of the American Philosophical Society in 1895 and of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1909. Wundt's name was given to the Asteroid Vundtia (635). Wundt was initially a physician and a well-known neurophysiologist before turning to sensory physiology and psychophysics. He

21584-539: Was a movement known as cognitivism in the 1950s, emerging after the Behaviorist movement viewed cognition as a form of behavior. Cognitivism approached cognition as a form of computation, viewing the mind as a machine and consciousness as an executive function. However; post cognitivism began to emerge in the 1990s as the development of cognitive science presented theories that highlighted the necessity of cognitive action as embodied, extended, and producing dynamic processes in

21736-531: Was about six years of age, his family moved to Heidelsheim , then a small medieval town in Baden-Württemberg . Born in the German Confederation at a time that was considered very economically stable, Wundt grew up during a period in which the reinvestment of wealth into educational, medical and technological development was commonplace. An economic striving for the advancement of knowledge catalyzed

21888-418: Was an influential American pioneer in the realm of psychology. Her work also focused on human memory capacity. A common theory, called the recency effect , can be attributed to the studies that she conducted. The recency effect, also discussed in the subsequent experiment section, is the tendency for individuals to be able to accurately recollect the final items presented in a sequence of stimuli. Calkin's theory

22040-502: Was caused by an intention in the right way, not in any way. This critique focuses on difficulties causalists have faced in explicitly formulating how to distinguish between proper and wayward causation. An important challenge to non-causalism is due to Davidson. As he points out, we usually have many different reasons for performing the same action. But when we perform it, we often perform it for one reason but not for another. For example, one reason for Abdul to go for cancer treatment

22192-421: Was clear from his memoirs, where he proclaimed that Weber should be regarded as the father of experimental psychology: "I would rather call Weber the father of experimental psychology…It was Weber's great contribution to think of measuring psychic quantities and of showing the exact relationships between them, to be the first to understand this and carry it out." In 1879, at the University of Leipzig, Wundt opened

22344-578: Was convinced that, for example, the process of spatial perception could not solely be explained on a physiological level, but also involved psychological principles. Wundt founded experimental psychology as a discipline and became a pioneer of cultural psychology . He created a broad research programme in empirical psychology and developed a system of philosophy and ethics from the basic concepts of his psychology – bringing together several disciplines in one person. Wundt's epistemological position – against John Locke and English empiricism ( sensualism ) –

22496-467: Was derided mid-century in the United States because of a lack of adequate translations, misrepresentations by certain students, and behaviorism 's polemic with Wundt's program. Wundt retired in 1917 to devote himself to his scientific writing. According to Wirth (1920), over the summer of 1920, Wundt "felt his vitality waning ... and soon after his eighty-eighth birthday, he died ... a gentle death on

22648-442: Was known to assign an instrument to various graduate students with the task of developing uses for future research in experimentation. Between 1885 and 1909, there were 15 assistants. In 1879, Wundt began conducting experiments that were not part of his course work, and he claimed that these independent experiments solidified his lab's legitimacy as a formal laboratory of psychology, though the university did not officially recognize

22800-403: Was made clear in his book Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung (Contributions on the Theory of Sensory Perception) published in 1862, by his use of a quotation from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz on the title page: "Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu, nisi intellectu ipse." (Leibniz, Nouveaux essais, 1765, Livre II, Des Idées, Chapitre 1, § 6). – Nothing is in the intellect that

22952-464: Was not first in the senses, except the intellect itself. Principles that are not present in sensory impressions can be recognised in human perception and consciousness: logical inferences , categories of thought, the principle of causality , the principle of purpose ( teleology ), the principle of emergence and other epistemological principles. Wundt's most important books are: These 22 volumes cover an immense variety of topics. On examination of

23104-411: Was not in the medical field – he was more attracted by psychology and related subjects. His lectures on psychology were published as Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology in 1863–1864. Wundt applied himself to writing a work that came to be one of the most important in the history of psychology, Principles of Physiological Psychology , in 1874. This was the first textbook that was written pertaining to

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