I.    WILHELM WUNDT’S FOUNDING OF THE SCIENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY: VOLUNTARISM

The name that Wundt gave to his approach to Psychology was voluntarism because
of its emphasis on will, choice, active synthesis and purpose (In a sense he
agreed with both Kant and Fechner).

Wundt's Voluntarism Consisted of Two Elements:

• Sensations: result of a sensory organ (i.e., eye, ear) receiving stimulation from the outside world and the resulting impulse in the nerves reaching the brain. Sensations can vary in

1. modality (visual, auditory, taste, etc.) and
2. quality (within a modality i.e., red, blue, etc. for vision)

• Feelings: emotional reactions that accompany sensations. All feelings exist as points in a three dimensional space (tri-dimensional theory):

• Wundt's Psychology was to be the study of how the mind actively, purposefully and creatively combines or synthesizes these elements into the rich and complex capabilities of the human mind.
  

• Example of Wundt's Methods: Introspective Mental Chronometry: Measurement of the time needed by the mind to perform various activities: Activities which take longer are more complex. The time taken to perform a calculation (Calculation Time or CT) for example, would be determined by first measuring:

1. Simple Reaction Time or SRT (two numbers are presented visually and the subject is instructed “push the button when you see two numbers”)
2. Calculation Reaction Time or CRT (two numbers are presented visually and the subject is instructed “push the button when you know the sum of the two numbers“)
3. Canceling out the motor component (time it takes to push the button) by calculating: CRT-SRT= CT
4. This would allow psychologists to quantify mental operations the same way that physiologists measure physical operations.
   

II.    SUMMARY: WUNDT vs. FECHNER

• Wundt:

Founded modern psychology through his activities as a promoter, advertiser, and
organizer of systematic experimentation of psychophysical phenomena. Established
the first psychological laboratory, edited the first psychological journal, and
granted the first academic degrees in psychology. Without Wundt’s
efforts--Psychology degrees would not exist.

• Fechner:

Originated modern psychology-- was not trying to found a new science--his goal
was to understand the relationship between the mental and material worlds.
Without Fechner’s ideas-- Psychology would not have happened.

III.    TITCHENER: THE MISREPRESENTATION OF WUNDT'S WORK: STRUCTURALISM

• Titchener: Summary of his “trashing of Wundt’s work”: Only focused on the elements-- totally disregarded Wundt’s larger scheme. Purported to be an “exact copy” of Wundt-- but was not.
• Concentrated only on elements--left out creative synthesis 
• Association was mechanical--not chemistry-like
• Disregarded Wundt's higher process (apperception) stuff e.g., reaction time for mental events, etc. 
• Disregarded Wundt's tridimensional theory of feelings and only kept one of them: pleasantness – unpleasantness
  

IV.    EDWARD BRADFORD TITCHENER--THIS IS YOUR LIFE

• Undergrad and Masters degrees at Oxford U -- Studied philosophy and the classics.
• Left England because colleagues were skeptical of scientific approach to psychological issues.
• Ph.D. with Wundt: 1892: Struck up a friendship an American student--Frank Angell. Angell established one of the first American Psychological laboratories at Cornell.
• Went to Cornell University in Ithaca NY as Angell's replacement when Angell went to Stanford.
• Quickly developed the largest doctoral program in psychology in the United States. "RULED HIS DOMAIN WITH AN IRON FIST" 
• To Titchener, all Americans and Germans who claimed to be psychologists were "...little more than watered-down Cartesians, codified phrenologists, or worst of all, thinly disguised theologists...."
• Established labs, researched, wrote (1893-1900).
• From 1900 onward: 

V.    TITCHENER’S STRUCTURALISM

• subject matter of psychology: conscious experience as that experience is dependent on the experiencing person(s).
• stimulus error problem
• immediate vs. mediate experience
• consciousness = the sum of our experiences s they exist in the moment
• mind = the sum of our experiences accumulated over a lifetime
• pure science

• yes... again...this guy was a piece of work...here is a quote from the man himself: "Science deals, not with values, but with facts. There is no good or bad, sick or well, useful, or useless, in science..."
• Introspection

• Defined three essential problems for Psychology (know them).
• Proposed three elementary states of consciousness (know them).
  

VI.    CONTRIBUTIONS OF STRUCTURALISM

• Subject matter clearly defined ("my way or the highway")... provided a strong, solid base against which younger, prettier and smarter psychologists could rebel.
• In all fairness-- he was the first "feminist" in academia...backed both female faculty and grad students.
• However, he was also a fraud and a liar in many ways.... who almost got away with completely obliterating the essence of the Wundt's Psychology.
• Ironically, modern day cognitive psychology is very much like Wundt's Psychological Science.... many generations (100+ years) have elapsed between Wundt's original work and the recent "rediscovery" of that work.