Ebbinghaus said this because psychology’s questions go back to the ancients

Ebbinghaus studied the relative effects on memory of spaced versus massed practice, part versus whole, and active versus passive learning.

• Active, spaced learning was most effective.

He found that meaningful material was much easier to learn and remember than material without meaning – Don Juan poem vs nonsense syllables.

Lists learned before sleep were better retained.

This was the first time a higher mental function had been studied experimentally.

• This was the first time a higher mental function had been studied experimentally.

• His book is “one of the most remarkable research achievements in the history of psychology” Roediger.

• His success established a paradigm for studying memory that was used for the next 90 years.

• An ecological approach later challenged this:

• Ulric Neisser challenged validity of lab tasks.
• Bahrick studied long-lasting memories.
• Banaji & Crowder defended lab-based studies.

Breslau schools were concerned that children were too tired during an uninterrupted 8-1 school day.

• Breslau schools were concerned that children were too tired during an uninterrupted 8-1 school day.

• Griesbach tested mental fatigue and irritability using a two-point discrimination task.

• He proposed the day be broken into 2 short segments.

• Ebbinghaus disagreed because the measurement of sensory discrimination has little to do with mental activity, introducing the concept of content validity.

• He developed analogy and completion test items to measure intelligence, later included in IQ tests by Binet.

Brentano was a Dominican priest and lecturer at the Univ. of Wurzburg who left his position after writing a scholarly critique of the doctrine of papal infallibility.

• Brentano was a Dominican priest and lecturer at the Univ. of Wurzburg who left his position after writing a scholarly critique of the doctrine of papal infallibility.

• During the next 6 years he taught at the University of Vienna and published a textbook:“Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint.”

Brentano studied Aristotle and put more emphasis on logical examination than experimental results.

• Brentano studied Aristotle and put more emphasis on logical examination than experimental results.

• As a result, Brentano’s ideas were fixed and did not change, because neither logic nor premises change.

• Instead of studying the products of mental actions, as Wundt did, Brentano’s act psychology studied the processes and mental actions themselves.

• Brentano did not use introspection (inner observation) –it was impossible because the act of observing changes what is observed, retrospection (memory) was possible.

Three fundamental classes of mental acts:

• Three fundamental classes of mental acts:

• Ideating, judging, loving (versus hating)

• Mental acts may have as their objects past sensations (an idea of an object not present) using memory and imagination (Locke’s Reflection).

• It is possible to feel an emotion when the object of that emotion is not present.
• One mental act may have as its object another mental act – judgments about judgments.

Brentano is not as well-known as Wundt because he wrote less and had personal problems.

• Brentano is not as well-known as Wundt because he wrote less and had personal problems.

• He did very little experimental research.

• His main importance is his formulation of a rival approach to Wundt’s.

• His psychology of acts was a precursor to the American functionalists.

• Two of his students (Stumpf & von Ehrenfels) influenced the later Gestalt psychologists.

Stumpf was a talented musician who composed and performed throughout his life, mixing with musicians.

• Stumpf was a talented musician who composed and performed throughout his life, mixing with musicians.

• Brentano changed his life by teaching him to think logically and empirically.

• Brentano encouraged him to transfer and study under Lotze, a German perceptual theorist.

• He became a priest but left the seminary over papal infallibility, but not the church like Brentano.

• Lotze got him a job at the Univ. of Gottingen where he worked with Weber and Fechner.

Two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one:

• Two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one:

• Stumpf conducted experiments studying whether this “golden section” ratio was aesthetically pleasing.

Stumpf gained a reputation for youthful brilliance by publishing a nativist explanation of depth perception.

• Stumpf gained a reputation for youthful brilliance by publishing a nativist explanation of depth perception.

• He opposed Berkeley, Helmholtz, Wundt & Lotze.
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