PSY 4130 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Experimental Psychology, Wilhelm Wundt, Gustav Fechner

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 4130
• Professor: Shirley Griffith

Document Summary

Gustav theodor fechner (1801-1887: he wanted to look at the quantitative relationship between a mental sensation and a material stimulus. What is the relationship between the physical and the mental world: the relationship is logrithmic: not a one to one relationships. Effects of stimulus intensities are relative to the amount of sensation that already exists. You can add the same amount of stimulus, but how much sensation you have will depend on the background that already exists: absolute threshold: above the threshold you can hear, below it you cannot detect it. Does not tell us much above the absolute threshold, only tells us the lowest point of sensation: differential threshold: where the least amount of change gives rise to a change in sensation. He found for each of the human senses there is an intensity that creates an observable change in sensation.