PSY 1101 Lecture Notes - Wilhelm Wundt, Experimental Psychology, Experiment

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1101
• Professor: Kenneth Campbell

Document Summary

Psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes. In any science we must be able to: Mental processes cannot be observed but can be defined. In a true experiment, we manipulate or change a variable. In psychology, we examine the mind, a (non physical) mental state. Lexical: probing your mind to recognize valid english words. What mental processes were involed in knowing that street is an english word but glues is not. Major divisions of psychology: experimental psychologists, clinical psychologists, applied psychologists, experimental psychology. The exact description of consciousness is the sole aim of experimental psychology. Basic principles of experimentation are used to explain psychological phenomena. Attempted to discover the basic structures of the mind (analogous to the basic elements in chemistry) The participant had to look inward (self-reflect) on the contents of their consciousness. This proved to be very unreliable and highly subjective. Developed by william james in the us in the early 1900s.