This presentation gives you an insight about the contribution of E.B. Titchener in the field of psychology

1. Made By
SIMRAT

2. •E. B. Titchener
Introduction
Life
His Work
Contributions
State of Conscious Experience
Stimulus Error
Introspection
Elements of Consciousness
Organizing the elements of Conscious Experience
Criticism
•References

3. •Did refinement of the system given by the mentor Wundt
•Also worked on the topic of ATTENTION
•Gave the term STRUCTURALISM in the US in a proper called “The
Postulates of a Structural Psychology”
•Changes done by Titchener when brought Structuralism from Germany to
America
•Titchener’s aim was to analyse consciousness into its component parts
and thus determine its structure.
•Experimental Psychology has the following aim:-
a) To analyze the structure of the mind
b) To ravel out the elemental processes from the tangle of consciousness
c) To isolate the constituents in the given conscious formation

4. •Tichener focused on mental elements or contents and their
mechanical linking through the process of ASSOCIATION
(discarded Wundt’s doctrine of Appreception)
•Titchener’s fundamental task was to discover the nature of the
elementary conscious experience
•Titchener also listed three problems for psychology that were very
similar to Wundt
•The Aim of the Psychchologist is three-fold:--
1. To analyze concrete (actual) mental experience into its simplest
components.
2. To discover how these elements combine, what are the laws
which govern their combination.
3. To bring them into connection with their physiological (bodily)
conditions.

5. 1. Born in England
2. Attended at Oxford U.
a. philosophy and the classics
b. research assistant in physiology
c. interested in Wundt’s
psychology
3. 1892, studied with Wundt and
earned PhD at Leipzig
4. Back to Oxford U. and wished to
become the English pioneer of
Wundt’s psychology.

6. 5. However, his colleagues were
skeptical of scientific approach to
philosophical issues. Thus, he left
England to Cornell U.
6. Cornell University (1893-1927)
a. 1893-1900 established lab, did
research, and wrote articles.
b. supervised more than 50 doctoral
candidates
c. directed students’ research topics
d. built his system of structuralism
e. translated Wundt’s books such as
Principles of Physiological
Psychology

7. 1. His books
a. 1896: An Outline of Psychology
b. 1898: Primer of Psychology
c. 1901-1905: Experimental Psychology: A Manual of Lab
Practice
1) stimulated growth of lab work in US
2) influenced a generation of experimental psychology
3) popular text, translated in to 5 languages
2. 1904: Titchener Experimentalists organized; men only.

8. 3. Accepted women in psychology graduate programs
a. one-third of his doctoral students were women
b. Margaret F. Washburn
1) first woman Ph.D in psychology
2) wrote important book on comparative
psychology (The Animal Mind, 1908)
3) first woman psychologist elected to National
Academy of Sciences
4) president of the APA

9. CONTENT OF CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE
The subject matter of psychology is conscious experience as that
experience is dependent on the person who is actually experiencing it.
For example:-- Light and sound can be studies by physicists and by
psychologists.
Physicists examine the phenomena from the standpoint of the physical
process involved
Psychologists consider the light and sound in terms of how humans observe
and experience these phenomena.
Conscious Experience was the only proper focus for psychological reason(
Think of a room with temperature of 45 degree celsius)

10. Consciousness was defined as the sum total of a person’s
experiences as they are at any given time.
Mind was regarded as the sum total of a person’s experiences
considered as dependent on the person, summed from birth to
death.(Ideas, Feelings, Impulses ,etc )
Structural psychology to Titchener was a pure science.
Psychology should not be concerned with applying psychological
knowledge.
Psychology was not in the business of curing sick minds or reforming
society.
Psychology’s only legitimate purpose was to discover the facts of
structure of mind.

11. STIMULUS ERROR
•It is related to the distinction between physics and psychology.
•Definition--It means the error of paying attention to and reporting the
known properties of the stimulus rather than sensory experience itself.
The most obvious error made by untrained introspectors.
•This kind of information is beneficial and necessary for everyday life but of
no use to the field of psychology.
For example:-- Observers who see an apple and describe that object as an
apple, instead of reporting the elements of color, brightness and shape
they are experiencing– are guilty of committing the stimulus error.
The object of our observation is not to be described in everyday language
but rather in terms of the elementary conscious content of experience.

12. A trained Introspector is one who learns to ignore the objects and
events as such and to concentrate instead on the pure conscious
experience.
Use of Reduction Screen( a way to reduce stimulus error)
Permits the subject to see only a small part of the stimulus object
through a kind of peephole. Such a device prevents the subject
from seeing either the nature of the object or the amount of
illumination and now his judgment follows the “true” character of
the isolated sensory experience.
Example– white paper dimly illuminated---dark grey
black coal brightly illuminated--- light grey
Judgments more in accord with the physical energies of the
stimuli, although they are less accurate descriptions of the
reflectivities of the coal and the paper.

13. Psychology ought to study
experience as it seems to exist
when we try to detach it from
learning (no use of meaning
words).

14. INTROSPECTION
It is form of self-observation.
Introspection relied on observers who were rigorously trained to
describe the elements of their conscious state rather than
reporting the observed or experienced stimulus by a familiar
name.
In everyday life, individuals have habit of describing experience in
terms of the stimulus– such as calling a red, shiny and round
object as an apple– and that in everyday life is useful.
Titchener used detailed, qualitative, subjective reports of his
subjects’ mental activities during the act of introspecting.

15. Titchener called subjects as Reagents (used by Chemists)
Reagents usually passive, an agent used to elicit or prompt
responses from other substance.
Subjects considered to be like Mechanical Recording Instruments ,
objectively reacting and responding by noting the characteristics of
the stimulus they are observing.
Subjects were nothing but impartial , detached machine
(Galilean-Newtonian mechanical view of Universe– Humans are
machine)
Titchener maintained an experimental approach to Introspective
Observation in psychology.
(Repeating it over and over again to get similar results)

16. Some experiments done by Titchener :--
1. A chord would be struck on piano; the chord consisted of 3 individual
notes sounded together
The subject would report on how many separate tones they could
distinguish, the mental characteristics of sounds and whatever other
basic atoms or elements of consciousness they could detect
2. Given words were said aloud.
Subjects asked to observe the effect which the stimulus produces upon
consciousness; how the word affects you, what ideas it calls up and so
forth
During Introspection the observer completely forgets to give subjective
attention to the state of observing.

17. No use of certain classes of words in the verbal reports of introspection- called
MEANING WORDS
For example– “I see a table”
A meaning word– based on pre-knowledge about the aggregation of visual and
tactual sensations by when an individual identifies “table”
Using meaning word will lead to committing Stimulus Error
The external conditions must be carefully controlled so that the contents of
consciousness can be precisely determined and so that more than one observer
may experience the same thing and therefore cross-check the results of the
experiment.
Therefore, it is difficult to form a language apt for the structuralists.
(easier to correlate words with objects than with experiences, since we have
more useful object languages within science than we have experience
languages.)

18. ELEMENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Titchener posed 3 essential problems for psychology:--
1. Reduce Conscious Processes to their simplest components
2. Determine laws by which these elements of Consciousness were associated
3. Connect the elements with their Physiological conditions
3 elementary states of conscious(elements were thought to be the basic and
incapable for further reductions):--
• Sensations
The Basic elements of perception and occur in the sounds , sights, smells and
other experiences evoked by physical objects in our environment.
• Images
The elements of ideas, and they are found in the process that reflects
experiences that are not actually present at the moment , such as a memory of
past experiences.
• Affective States
The elements of emotion and are found in experience such as love , hate and
sadness.

19. In Titchener’s book, “An Outline to Psychology”- list of 44500
individual sensation qualities.
32820 11600
Visual Sensations Auditory Sensations
Each believed to be conscious and distinct from all others--- can be
combined with others to form perceptions and ideas.
Mental elements could be categorized into classes like chemical
elements based on their attributes.
Wundt’s attributes– Quality and Intensity
Titchener added– Duration/Propensity and Clearness/ Attensity .

20. Quality is the characteristics– such as ”cold” or “red” – that
clearly distinguishes each element from every other elements.
Intensity refers to a sensation’s strength, weakness, loudness
or brightness.
Duration is the course of a sensation over time.
Clearness refers to the role of attention in conscious
experience toward which our attention is not directed.
Sensation and Images have all 4 Attributes
Affective States have only 3 attributes(lack clearness)
(Imagine paying attention on an emotion or feeling you are
having. What do you think will happen at the end of it?)

21. CRITICISM
The era of structuralism died with Titchener’s death
Structuralism made many positive contributions to the science of psychology
1. Introspection
• Positivist Philosopher—Auguste Comte– If mind was capable of observing its
own activities, it would divide itself into 2 parts– one doing the observing and
other being observed– Impossible
• English Physician – Henry Maudsley– said Introspective reports cannot be
trusted– Pathology of mind is such that it alters things in the way it wants it
or does what he prefers and only perceives that part, tend to ignore the rest.
• There is no exact definition of introspection given by Titchener
• No proper language to explain introspective reports
• Different results not just in different labs but in same lab too( same stimulus
material-made different observations). That is no uniformity in reports .
• Critics charged that introspection was really a form of retrospection, because
some time elapsed between the experience and the reporting of it
For example– try introspecting the conscious state of anger…..?

22. 2. Structuralist movement accused of artificiality and sterility for
attempting to analyze conscious processes into elements.
• Critics charged that the whole of an experience cannot be re-
captured by any later association or combination of the
elementary part.
• They are argued that experience does not come to us in
individual sensations , images and affective states but in unified
wholes. Something of the conscious experience is inevitably lost
in the artificial effort to analyze it.
3. Definition of psychology also attacked
-Limited scope
-No good to society
- Discarded animal and child psychology
-No application of psychology to everyday life

23. •A History of Modern Psychology in Context by Wade
Pickren and Alexandra Rutherford
•A brief History of Psychology by Michael Wertheimer
•A history of Modern Psychology by Duane P. Schultz
and Sydney Ellen Schultz
•System and Theories in Psychology by Melvin H. Marx
and William A. Hillix