Experimental psychology

“ I must be understood to reject all the investigations of the experimenters, and those who are still sick with the experimental fever may ask in wonder if all these have no value? Experimental psychology has not given a single explanation as to the deeper laws of masculine life; it can be regarded only as a series of sporadic empirical efforts, and its method is wrong inasmuch as it seeks to reach the kernel of things by surface examination, and as it cannot possibly give an explanation of the deep-seated source of all psychical phenomena. ”

“ Nevertheless we ought not to forget the experience through which general experimental psychology has gone in the last few decades. When the first experiments were undertaken in order to deal systematically with the mental life, the friends of this new science and its opponents agreed, on the whole, in the belief that certainly only the most elementary phenomena of consciousness, the sensations and the reactions of impulses, would be accessible to the new method. ”

“ In other words, it was deliberately stated by many, that neither classical nor experimental psychology had as yet anything to offer for dealing with this human problem. To introduce the usual and often complicated devices of the laboratory, which are for measuring and discriminating the simpler elements of mental life, would be, it was said, to delude ourselves and be in the position of misleading others. ”

“ The results of experimental psychology will have to be introduced systematically into the study of the fitness of the personality from the lowest to the highest technical activity and from the simplest sensory function to the most complex mental achievement. ”

“ But if we would approach to an understanding of psychological things we must remember the fact of the subjective conditioning of all knowledge. The world is as we see it and not simply objective; this holds true even more of the mind. Of course it is possible to look at the mind objectively, just as at Faust, or a Gothic Cathedral. In this objective conception there is comprised the whole worth and worthlessness of current experimental psychology and psychoanalysis. The scientific mind, thinking causally, is incapable of understanding what is ahead ”

“ Not all mental phenomena can be subjected to experiment so neatly as this particular perception; and the psychologist must still fall back, more often than he likes, upon casual observation or imperfect experiments. The reason is that psychology has only recently become an experimental science. ”

“ Hence it comes about that the inquirer after the secrets of the human soul, learns rather less than nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, take off his scholar’s gown, say farewell to his study, and then, strong in manly courage, set out to wander through the world ”

“ Laboratories for experimental psychology have grown up in all civilized countries, and the new method has been applied to one group of mental traits after another. And yet we stand before the surprising fact that all the manifold results of the new science have remained book knowledge, detached from any practical interests. Only in the last ten years do we find systematic efforts to apply the experimental results of psychology to the needs of society. ”

“ As against the introspectionist, then, the behaviorist is justified in his contention that psychological procedure must be objective and experimental in character.274 The danger to which he has exposed himself is the failure to differentiate his problem from that of physiology and physics. It is only by a proper recognition of both the objective and the distinctive character of conscious behavior that psychology can free itself of the reproach which is heaped upon it by members of its own household and take the place that rightfully belongs to it in the community of the sciences. ”

“ Repetition saves hurry and worry; isolation prevents distraction; variation keeps us from jumping at conclusions. These are the advantages of experiment; and all experiments, in physics, in chemistry, in biology, everywhere, fall under this definition.
Psychology needs the experimental method for both the reasons noted above: because the observed phenomena are elusive and slippery processes, and because the observer is warped and biassed by common sense. We may therefore show by an example how psychological experiment is possible. ”

“ There is much in experimental psychology which is of less use than the material exemplified in this test. Putting the theoretical interest altogether aside, we have here something that is not to be despised from a practical point of view, to wit, a culprit has been brought to light in a much easier and shorter way than is customary. What has been possible once or twice ought to be possible again, and it is well worth while to investigate some means of rendering the method increasingly capable of rapid and sure results. ”

“ In such a course, it is sometimes urged, the introduction of experimental methods burdens the general student with details valuable only to the specialist, substitutes technical minutia for psychological principle and tends to confuse psychology with the other sciences. ”

“ We can also study the capabilities and limitations of the subconscious in carrying on intelligent operations below the threshold of consciousness. Again, we can investigate the phenomena of this kind as met with in the course of clinical observations, and by technical methods of research explore the subconscious and thus explicitly reveal the process underlying and inducing the phenomena. By such methods of investigation the subconscious has been removed from the field of speculative psychology, and placed in the field of experimental research. ”

“ I cannot assert that this is always or even frequently the case, since we are not here concerned with things that can be directly observed, and since numerous results in which such secret warping of the truth might be expected show evident independence of it. All I can say is, we must expect something of the sort from our general knowledge of human nature, and in any investigations in which the inner attitude is of very great importance, as for example in experiments on sense perception, we must give special heed to its misleading influence. ”

“ He who considers the complicated processes of the higher mental life or who is occupied with the still more complicated phenomena of the state and of society will in general be inclined to deny the possibility of keeping constant the conditions for psychological experimentation. Nothing is more familiar to us than the capriciousness of mental life which brings to nought all foresight and calculation. ”

“ But half a century has passed since the study of consciousness was switched into the tracks of exact scientific investigation. Five decades ago the psychologists began to devote themselves to the most minute description of the mental experiences and to explain the mental life in a way which was modeled after the pattern of exact natural sciences. Their aim was no longer to speculate about the soul, but to find the psychical elements and the constant laws which control their connections. Psychology became experimental and physiological. ”

“ While the psychological theory would guide and illuminate the practice, acting upon the theory would immediately test it, and thus criticise it, bringing about its revision and growth. In the large and open sense of the words, psychology becomes a working hypothesis, instruction is the experimental test and demonstration of the hypothesis; the result is both greater practical control and continued growth in theory. ”

“ This development of schemes to compare the differences between the individuals by the methods of experimental science was after all the most important advance toward the practical application of psychology. The study of the individual differences itself is not applied psychology, but it is the presupposition without which applied psychology would have remained a phantom. ”

“ Should we care to look for more proofs as to the validity of correlation of psychic with neural, or physical processes, we can also find it in another branch of experimental physiology, namely, physiological psychology. ”

“ The science of the mental machinery is psychology, which works on principles with the exact methods of the experiment. It seems unprogressive, indeed, if just this one industry neglects the help which experimental science may furnish. A few slight beginnings, to be sure, have been made, but not by the men of affairs, whose practical interests are involved. They [232] have been made by psychologists who in these days of carrying psychology into practical life have pushed the laboratory method into the field of advertising. ”

“ The nature of this problem demands a relatively large number of persons for the experimental treatment. With most experimental researches in our psychological laboratories, the number of the subjects experimented on is not so important as the number of experiments made with a few well-trained participants. But with the questions of applied psychology the number of persons plays a much more significant rôle, as the individual differences become of greatest importance. ”

“ This is a critical account of the results of the experimental method in psychology rather than an attempt to construct a system on the basis of those results. Psychology is regarded as an inductive descriptive science, differing from other sciences in the dependence of the experiments it describes on the experiencing individual. ”

“ Either introspective or objective observation can be employed in the experimental attack on a problem, which consists, as just illustrated in the case of memory, in controlling the conditions under which a mental performance occurs, varying the conditions systematically, and noting the resulting change in the subject's mental process or its outcome. Psychologists are inclined to regard this as the best line of attack, whenever the mental activity to be studied can be effectively subjected to control. ”

“ The constant flux and caprice of mental events do not admit of the establishment of stable experimental conditions. ”

“ For, indeed, experiment simply gives an enormous increase of reach and accuracy to introspection, making it, what unassisted it rarely is, trustworthy. The real contrast in method is between subjective psychology, on one hand, whether carried on with or without instrumental aid, and objective psychology, on the other hand, embracing child, animal, and folk psychology. ”

“ Sensorial perception, for example, certainly occurs with greater or less accuracy according to the degree of interest; it is constantly given other directions by the change of external stimuli and by ideas. ”

“ Often, even after years, mental states once present in consciousness return to it with apparent spontaneity and without any act of the will; that is, they are reproduced involuntarily. ”

“ Let us now apply experiment to the science of mind. We must remember that in every department of investigation the experimental method takes on a special form, according to the nature of the facts investigated. We can not experiment upon mind itself, but only upon its outworks, the organs of sense and movement which are functionally related to mental processes. So that every psychological experiment is at the same time physiological, just as there are physical sciences corresponding to the mental processes of sensation, idea and will. ”

“ While they should be used for the sake of a better elucidation of the facts, it is not good scientific sense to sacrifice to them the very material of the science of psychology. Sensations, ideas, feelings, emotions, are after all the direct data of the psychologist, while physiological processes and currents are purely hypothetical. ”

“ The method to be pursued in studying nature, and the method to be pursued in studying man, can now no longer be regarded as the same. The physical method observes—but the psychological method swings itself higher than this, and observes observation. Thus psychology, or philosophy properly so called, commences precisely at the point where physical science ends. ”

“ The psychic process is the highest stage in the evolution of life, and as such should be studied not by the instruments of mechanics and chemistry, but by the methods of biology. In addition to the concept of efficient causation, psychology even more than biology, should also work with the concepts of unity, synthesis, and purpose. ”

“ The science then that deals with immediate experience must postulate mediate experience as one of its fundamental presuppositions. Thus we come once more to the conclusion, and this time from quite a different standpoint, that psychology as science in general has its presuppositions, and that it furthermore presupposes all the presuppositions of the natural sciences. ”

“ We must therefore modify our 188point of view and seek elsewhere; anthropology, the history of customs, of arts, religions and sciences, will often be more useful to us than the contributions of physiology. The experiments of the laboratory inspire some with a faith not to be shaken; but the evolution of the feelings in time and space, through centuries and races, is a laboratory, operating, for thousands of years, on millions of men; and its documentary value is a high one. It would be a great loss to psychology if these documents were neglected. ”

“ It is evident that everywhere in the world where the psychological laboratory turns to natural science, the experiments deal mostly with sensation, perception, and reaction; while those laboratories which keep their friendship with epistemology emphasize the higher mental functions, experimenting on attention, memory, association, feeling, emotion, thought, and so on. ”