1825-----1850-----1875-----1900-----1925-----1950-----1975-----2000
_____---------Brentano--------------
--------------Stumpf---------------
-------------Husserl-----------
-----------Vaihinger---------------
Franz Clemens Brentano 1838-1917
Psychology should study the processes of the mind, not its contents.
Act Psychology deals with the interaction between mental processes and physical events
Mental operations exist to perform a function outside themselves
Carl Stumpf 1848-1936
Mental events should be studied as single units and not broken down
Edmund
Husserl 1859-1938
There are two kinds of introspection: one to look at intentionality and the other to look at subjectively experienced processes.
Experimental psychology is possible, but the natural sciences shouldn’t be the exemplar
Sought to study “mental essences” which are the processes that characterize the mind; this study must come before the study of perception, memory, and feelings
Oswald Külpe 1862-1915
Believed that some thoughts can be imageless
Higher mental processes can be studied experimentally
Mental Set: a problem solving strategy that can be unconscious and also can be derived both experimentally and from experience
Attention determines which sense is experienced (i.e. participants remembered either the syllables or the colors depending on what they were focusing on.)
Hans
Vaihinger
1852-1933
All we can be sure of are sensations; as a result anything we conclude about physical reality is necessarily fictional
Fictional ideas aren’t necessarily bad, they are just false; they can still be useful
Hermann
Ebbinghaus
1850-1909
Studied learning and memory as they occurred, not after
Created the first retention curve for learning
Emphasized distributed practice, not massed practice after learning experiments with himself