文档介绍：—CHAPTER 9
Voluntarism,Structuralism,and Other
Early Approaches to Psychology
Many if not all individuals covered in the preceding
chapter planted the seeds that grew into experimen-
tal psychology. The honor of formally founding ex-
perimental psychology, however, is given to Wilhelm
Wundt. If we wanted to read about experimental psy-
chology prior to Wundt, we could do so by consulting
the work of such individuals as Helmholtz, Weber,
and Fechner. Wundt, however, took the diverse
achievements of many others and synthesized them
into a unified program of research that anized
around certain beliefs, procedures, and methods.
As early as 1862 Wundt performed an experi-
ment that led him to believe that a full-fledged disci-
pline of experimental psychology was possible. Using
the apparatus shown in Figure , Wundt showed
that it took about 1/10 of a second to shift one’s at-
tention from the sound of the bell to the position of
the pendulum or vice versa. Wundt believed that,
with his “thought meter,” he had demonstrated that
humans could attend to only one thought at a time
and that it takes about 1/10 of a second to shift from
one thought to another.
From this early experiment Wundt concluded
not only that experimental psychology is feasible but Figure
that such a psychology must stress selective atten- Wundt’s “thought meter.” The clock was arranged so
tion, or volition. that the pendulum (B) swung along a calibrated scale
(M). The apparatus was arranged so that a bell (g) was
Wundt suddenly realized that he was measuring the struck by the metal pole(s) at the extremes of the
speed of a central mental process, that for the first pendulum’s swing (d, b). Wundt discovered that if he
time, he thought, a self-conscious experimental psy- looked at the scale as the bell sounded, it was never in
chology was taking place. The time it takes to position d or b but some distance away from either.
switch a