PS101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Wilhelm Wundt, Applied Psychology, Attention Span
Document Summary
Starts in the earliest pages of recorded history. Start when people wondered about human nature and human behaviour. When studying why a certain behaviour or mental process ovurs, one can study the influences of: the brain (and its parts) Try to apply a scientific discipline to question. Philosophers were the ones arguing about what it was to be human , alive and to. Conducted experiments, but not like today: questioned experiences, immediate, conscious, belief that all experience could be reduced to basic elements. Goal: understand how the simplest elements of structure of conscious experience combine to create more complex perceptions and behaviours. So what did they do in their experiments: reaction times, attention span, perception of visual stimuli, touch and hearing. Functionalists proposed that the mind was shaped by natural selection; modern evolutionary psychology is one descendant of james" ideas. Scope of psychology increases: includes behaviours (as well as mental processes, includes children, animals, intellectually challenged.
