Research on Experimental Psychology
Mental chronometry. In 1795, an astronomer assistant to the Greenwich Observatory was fired when his superior discovered that the traffic times he had calculated were half a second faster than those of his assistant. The chief astronomer naturally meant that his own times were correct and that those of his assistant were wrong. Bessel, who began to systematically compare the transit times of different astronomers.
The observations of any astronomer couple could be compared in these equations that reflected the reaction times of each one, allowing to correct the calculations of the position of the stars. In fact, in experiments with artificial stars with known transit times it has been proven that sometimes astronomers "saw" the star to cross the marked point before this really happened. Meanwhile, the great German physicist Hermann Von Helmholtz used the measure of reaction times to find an answer to the problem of nerve transmission speed. These two lines of research on the reaction times converged in the work of the Dutch physiologist F. Wherers discovered that the time between a stimulus and its response could be used to objectively quantify the speed of mental processes.
Helmholtz had measured the type of reaction stimulus simple response, and astronomers had investigated, with other objectives, some mental processes such as trial. The special contribution from where it consisted of the use of reaction times to infer the action of complex mental processes. This is an example of simple reaction time. The task could be complicated using two bulbs and two switches and thus measure the compound reaction time.
Here is still a simple reaction, but the person must discriminate or issue a judgment about which of the lights has been lit, and then respond properly. If the simple reaction takes to complete, for example, 150 meters per second and the compound reaction takes 230 meters per second, then, it reasoned where, the mental action of judging that it is added to the simple reaction will take to complete 230 – 150 = 80 = 80meters per second. This method was called mental timetry, which seemed to offer an objective way of measuring the physiological and mental processes that could not be observed directly. Precisely because it was a quantitative method, it contributed to guaranteeing the scientific stature of experimental psychology and differentiating it from qualitative philosophical psychology.
Thus brought the mind to the chair and introduced it in the laboratory. The use of reaction times has had its ups and downs throughout the subsequent history of psychology, but it continues to be an important technique today. Boring, dean of psychology historians, dates the foundation of experimental psychology in 1860, year of the publication of psychophysics elements, written by retired physicist Gustav Theodore Fechner . Boring’s statement is based on the fact that Fechner conceived and developed the first systematic investigation of experimental psychology, which also gave rise to mathematical laws.
In a time before FECHNER, the philosophers, following Kant, used to assume that the mind could not be subject to mathematical experiments or analysis. Fechner showed that this assumption was false, although at first the difficulties seemed insurmountable. However, the mind is something private and this type of instruments cannot be applied to conscious experiences. Fechner overcame these problems.
Thanks to this control it is possible to experiment with the mind. Fechner realized that difficulty and solved it quantifying the sensations indirectly, that is, asking the participants, for example, which of the two objects weighs more, or which of the two sounds sounds 188 with greater volume. Fechner’s approach did not lacked background. The immediate reason for Fichner’s work was the mind-body problem.
As a physicist, Fechner trusted that his psychophysics would show that the mind and body were related precise and quantifiable. Fechner was not the founder of the science of psychology because, unlike Wundt, he did not create a social institution, that is, a university laboratory, to support psychology as an officially recognized field of study. However, Fichner founded experimental psychology, because its methods, expanded so as not to cover only sensations, were basic for the experimental psychology of Wundt’s consciousness. In Wundt’s experiments the stimular conditions were controlled, as well as in the FECHNner, and the data were obtained when the participants reported the resulting conscious content.
This was not the only method that Wundt applied, but one of the most important and the one that most of his students inherited from their laboratory.
The mental tests
Another way to measure the mind, the mental test, emerged in the 19th century and was fundamental for the foundation of applied psychology. Mental tests were not invented for scientific reasons, but were put at the service of public education. Experimental psychology studied the normal human mind, considering individual differences as a variable of error that should be minimized by rigorous experimental control. Mental tests, on the other hand, were directly conceived to rigorously measure individual differences.
For mental tests there was no normal human mind, but only the average human mind. Some of the first mental tests were based on frantology, which had inherited from Gall the objective of determining the differences in mental and personal abilities. Popular franking foreshadow the future developments of mental tests in different fields, from personnel selection to premarital advice. In Great Britain and in France, more scientific methods were developed for the elaboration of mental tests that were influenced by the legacy of the British and French philosophies, respectively.
The tests in Great Britain. Sir Francis Galton was a wealthy cousin of Charles Darwin who had collaborated with him in some experiments on inheritance, of quite disappointing results. Galton began to be interested in the evolution of mental features, and in his work Hereditary Genius set out to “demonstrate that the natural abilities of a man derive from inheritance exactly with the same limitations as the form and physical features of the world organic". He tracked the lineages of families in which physical abilities seemed to have gone from parents to children and others in which the same thing happened with mental abilities.
Galton wanted to measure intelligence, which for him was the most important mental capacity. Galton discovered that there was a high correlation between the notes of the exams of different subjects, which confirmed the idea that intelligence is a single mental ability. Galton’s claim gave rise to the controversy, still to be resolved, about general intelligence. Galton’s followers believe that most intelligence can be explained by a single psychometric factor, factor G.
In order not to have to depend on the imprecise grades of the teachers, Galton tried to measure intelligence in a more precise and direct way. This emphasis on consciousness was consistent with the introspective study of consciousness contents that the Germans were carrying out, and some of Galton’s measures were adaptations of psychophysical methods. In addition, Galton also believed, like many scientists, including Broca, who was the greater the brain, the greater the intelligence of the mind. In South Kensington, a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of London, Galton established an anthropometric laboratory where participants could perform their mental tests.
The Columbian Exhibition of 1893 introduced Americans in the world of psychology. Galton studied currents, unlike trained observers and with a high level of formation of German introspective laboratories and the pathological subjects of French clinics. These people paid a small rate for undergoing the tests and were called "candidates". Galton’s practices probably emulated to frantology, where people also paid a rate to examine their heads .
Galton himself had visited a frantologist on one occasion. Galton contributed to double -departed psychology, since he invented mental tests and introduced the professional practice, more than scientific model, of "service rates". While Galton was the first to try to elaborate intelligence tests, in practice his tests failed . However, Galton’s approach on intelligence and his evolutionary perspective of the mind have had a remarkable influence, especially in the United States.
James McKen Cattell developed Galton’s methods and coined the term "mental test". Boring according to which American psychologists received their Wundt instruments and Galton’s inspiration. Tests in France. Binet was a law student who ended up dedicating himself to psychology.
As usual among French psychologists, it was introduced in the field of psychology through the medical clinic, studying with Charcot . His first works were related to hypnosis, although he carried out studies in many areas of psychology and was co -founder of the First Psychological Institute of France, in Sorbonne in 1889 . Binet’s approach combined Cartesian emphasis on higher mental functions with French clinical orientation . In the Anthropometric Laboratory of Galton and in the experimental laboratories of Germany, psychologists concentrated on the sensory-motor functions.
In the article "The Psychologie individuelle", published in 190 1895 with its collaborator Victor Henri, Binet defined the field of individual psychology as opposed to the German experimental psychology. Both authors announced the practical value of their way of doing psychology, and expressed their desire to "enlighten the practical importance … that you have for pedagogues, doctors, anthropologists and even judges" . Binet’s article constitutes an early and important manifesto of applied psychology. Binet developed a practical test battery based on a set of intellectual tasks that normal children could perform at certain ages.
Binet’s practical test was rough but effective, and much more useful than Galton’s theoretically founded tests. At first, Goddard tried to resort to variants of the usual laboratory methods, such as Galton’s, but found that they were useless. The test was better adapted to English by Lewis Terman, whose first contact with psychology was during his childhood, when he had examined him a frantologist. Educational psychology and mental tests also developed in Germany, although at a more leisurely pace than in other countries.
Mental tests have become an important social force since people’s education and professional career have been influenced, and sometimes even determined, by the scores obtained in them. In the practical field, the daily impact of mental tests has been much greater than that of experimental psychology.
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