PS101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Naturalistic Observation, Asteroid Family, Edward B. Titchener
Document Summary
What is psychology: the study of mental processes and behaviour. Started in earliest stages of recorded history, when people wondered about human nature and human behaviour. Why people do things, even babies and animals can gure people out. Psychology = philosophy: no unique domain of psychology. Philosophers argued about what it was to be human, alive and experience things. Science and psychophysics (deals with sensation and perception: decided to hypothesize and test, shifted to become a scienti c discipline, ie. adding light before people notice it"s brighter, sound louder etc Wilhem wundt, lab formed in 1879 in leipzig, germany. Belief all experience could be reduced to basic elements. Wanted to: de ne/explain structural of consciousness (introspection) Individuals have different views on the same experience, looked at individuals in his research rather than groups. Also looked at: reaction times, attention span, perception of visual stimuli, touch and hearing, how does will in uence behaviour (voluntarism)
