Wundt's Psychological Model

(based on his 1894 Outlines in psychology)

Voluntarism, Introspection and Mental Chronometry

Voluntarism (note: not volunteerism)

• Voluntarism: the power of the will to organize the mind’s content into higher-level thought processes.
• An associationist model, from simple elements to larger compounds, but it does not simply progress mechanically, the will has an organizing effect.

Cataloguing the contents of the mind

• Wundt wanted to catalog all possible basic immediate experiences, and form a “periodical table of elements” as chemistry did, through observing consciousness.
• The way to observe consciousness is through the method of introspection.
• Basic immediate experience (ex: the experience of “redness” or “discomfort”)

The method of introspection

• Introspection is an internal perception (intro = inside, spectare: looking)
• It involves observation of simple processes under very careful conditions that can be replicated
• The observers were extensively trained (10,000 observations before they were considered trained)

The method of mental chronometry

• Using reaction time to measure the complexity of operations --a more complex operation needing more time. A Dutch psychologist by the name of Franciscus Cornelius Donders (1818-1889) is the inventor of the method, and Wundt followed him on this. You can try some of this on Dr Likely's page on reaction times.

What are the elements of conscious experience?

(for more details go to Wundt's Outlines of Psychology)

1. At the basic level:
• Sensations: the result of the stimulation of a sense organ.
  • Classified by: Intensity, duration, sense modality
• Feelings: the affective tone of a sensation

 

Basic Psychic Elements (Wundt)
(Intensity and duration are 2 other dimensions that apply to all of these)

SENSATIONS			FEELINGS
General Sense	Pressure		pleasant/unpleasant
			excitement/depression
			tension/relaxation
	Heat		pleasant/unpleasant
			excitement/depression
			tension/relaxation
	Cold		pleasant/unpleasant
			excitement/depression
			tension/relaxation
Sound	Simple Noise		pleasant/unpleasant
			excitement/depression
			tension/relaxation
	Simple Tone		pleasant/unpleasant
			excitement/depression
			tension/relaxation
Smell	hard to categorize		pleasant/unpleasant
			excitement/depression
			tension/relaxation
Taste	Sour		pleasant/unpleasant
			excitement/depression
			tension/relaxation
	Sweet		pleasant/unpleasant
			excitement/depression
			tension/relaxation
	Bitter		pleasant/unpleasant
			excitement/depression
			tension/relaxation
	Salty		pleasant/unpleasant
			excitement/depression
			tension/relaxation
Light	Achromatic		pleasant/unpleasant
			excitement/depression
			tension/relaxation
	Chromatic	Tone	pleasant/unpleasant
			excitement/depression
			tension/relaxation
		Saturation	pleasant/unpleasant
			excitement/depression
			tension/relaxation
		Brightness	pleasant/unpleasant
			excitement/depression
			tension/relaxation

 

2. At the level of psychical compounds
• Several sensations form an idea.
• Several feelings form a composite feeling
• Emotions are affective processes over time (they have a beginning, a middle, and an end)
• Volitions are changes in ideas or feelings that bring an emotion to an end.

 

3. At the level of the interconnection of psychical compounds is General Consciousness.
   • General consciousness results in our overall awareness.
   • When connections are broken, unconsciousness or sleep results.
   • The process by which the synthesis of psychical compounds occurs
     • is growth oriented
     • is creative
     • fosters the development of opposites
   • Everything we have in our consciousness at one time constitutes the field or consciousness. This includes:
     • What is subject to apprehension, all the material in the field--background material, existing as a potential for apperception.
     • What is subject to apperception, and is perceived clearly.
       • Apperception is a volitional process, i.e. it has to do with the will.
         It is the will that directs the attention, is at the basis of the creative synthesis that leads to the construction of knowledge
       • Apperception is also relevant to clinical psychology.
         • Projective tests such as the Rorschach and the TAT are based on the concept of apperception. (TAT: Thematic Apperception Test)
         • Why is it that we perceive reality this or that way? Skewed perception may be connected with mental illness.