Like Wundt, the primary focus of German psychology was perception but these researchers didn’t limit themselves to one area of interest.
Perception
Carl Stumpf (1848-1936)
Many German psychologists rejected Wundt’s theory of volition but accepted his empirical methods. Carl Stumpf was a major competitor of Wundt. He embraced phenomenology, and focused his research on the perception of sound.
Born in Bavaria, Stumpf was a sickly child. He was tutored by his grandmother, who came from a prominent family. They lived in the country, and as Stunpf gained strength he hiked across much of central Germany and Switzerland.
A devout Catholic, Stunpf wrote on theology, political theory and philosophy. In fact, his first scholarly work was a history of the psychology of association. But soon turned to studying organ building and acoustics .
Music was a big part of Carl’s life, and he was quite a gifted musician. He learned to proficiently play the violin by age 7, and had mastered a half dozen instruments before adolescence.
‘Stumpf used his interest and expertise in music as the basis of his life’s work. He studied why different instruments playing the same tone sound different. He looked for the determinants of melody, tonal fusion, and the mechanisms of dissonance. He studied individual tones, intervals and the perception of tonal sequences.
Stumpf was the director of the (institute of Experimental Psychology in Berlin, and a pioneer in comparative musicology, ethnomusicology and the psychology of tones. A student of Brentano, Stumpf emphasized the importance of logic and the use of empirical methodology. He imparted these his ideas to his students, who included the Gestalt psychologists Kohler and Koffka. Another prominent student was Kurt Lewin, who helped found social psychology.
Stumpf got along with many people, including Ewald Hering, Ernst Mach, Anton Marty and William James. Wilhelm Wundt was not among them. Wundt used introspection as a research methodology. Individuals were trained to report their experience of a stimulus in sensory characteristics. An image might be experienced as blue, dull, and str-ed, but not as “pretty.”
Stumpf thought the technique unscientific, and said so, in print. Wundt disagreed. He responded strongly, including some personal insults in the process. This was not the beginning of a strong friendship. Strumpf eventually won. Psychology no longer relies on introspection.
Stumpf loved Berlin. He arrived on Easter, 1894, and stayed for 42 years. He died there 1936 at the age of 88. Cultural ly, it was an exciting city. Stumps particularly enjoyed listening to Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), comped and violinist extraordinaire. Joachim was internationally known for playing Beethoven, rejected the harshness of Wagner, and helped mentor an up and coming composer, Johannes Brahms.
In his autobiography, Stumpf described four experiences which are familiar to anyone doing research. First, an opportunity came his way. Sometimes circumstances change in a positive manner. Stumpf got an opportunity to study prodigies. As a gifted child himself, Stumpf was familiar with some of the challenges. He saw the loneliness of giftedness as a “miraculous abnormality” that would hopefully wear off. For one young man, Stumpf coordinated the funding, tutoring and education; pleased the child became a school principal when an adult. Another child, musically gifted, didn’t turn out to be a great composer but did become a gifted pianist.
Second, Stumpf describes being inspired to research a particular topic. He says he was inspired to study tonal compatibility by the work of Krueger. He began an experimental investigation of the topic, and gained a lot of knowledge about research methodology. Had he known how long this work was going to take he would never have started it. Good research methodology does guarantee significant findings.
Third, he shows it is easy to get distracted. In 1903, an engineer from a Prague reported he had made a machine that could convert photographs of sound waves back into sounds. Stumpf showed that this was a scam, and a distraction from real science.
Fourth, Stumpf was involved in the testing of Clever Hans.
Clever Hans
Clever Hans had the ability to tell time, differentiate musical tones, read, spell and figure out that “If the eighth day of the month comes on a Tuesday, what is the date of the following Friday?” Remarkable because Clever Hans was a horse.
At the beginning of the 20th century, animal intelligence was a hot topic. Half way between the publication of Darwin’s Origins of the Species in 1859 and the Scopes trial in 1925, a clever horse was of great interest. Everyone had an opinion on the matter. People over- and under-estimated how smart animals are. In this context, entered Clever Hans.
Hans was owned by Wilhelm von Osten, who taught high school math for a living. He also was very interested in phrenology, the external evaluation of internal mental processes, using head size, shape and bumps on the head. Other hobbies included horse training and mysticism.
It’s not clear how he began asking his horse questions but at some point he became convinced Hans was special. He showed off his horse to family, friends and neighbors. Newspapers covered Hans widely. These was a lot of interest in him.
Mr. von Osten never charged for his demonstrations, even though Hans became quite famous. But he was very proud of his horse. He appealed to the Board of Education, hoping they would confirm the uniqueness of his animal.
In 1904, Stumpf attended the centennial anniversary of Kent’s death. On his return to Berlin, he was invited to investigate the Clever Has phenomenon. Stumpf did what famous people do: he got others to do his work.
He formed a committee of 13 members. It included school teachers, a veterinarian, a circus manager, a zoologist, and a cavalry officer. They all agreed there were no tricks involved. Hans was successful when von Osten asked the question, or when they were asked by the famous African explorer Carl Schillings. It didn’t matter who asked the question. And it didn’t matter which topic was used. As long as it could be solved by Hans tapping his way until he reached the correct answer.
Some accounts say the commission was ready to stop without figuring out why Hans was so very different. Others suggest they were determined to investigate further. All agree it was Stumpf’s volunteer assistant, Oskar Pfungst (1874-1932), who solved the mystery.
Pfungst showed that Hans could get the correct answer only if the questioner knew the answer and Hans could see him. Hans would watch the presenter and tap until there were changes in micro expressions, unconscious movements or small postural changes. Horses are very keen at detecting small postural changes. This may explain why riders think their horses are telepathic. It might be subtle changes in the saddle and not mind meld that the horses are receiving.
After the study, Pfunst used to perform in front of an audience, playing the role of the horse. Individuals were asked to stand on his right and concentrate on a number or simple math problem. Then, like a Clever Hans, Pfungst would tap out the answer with his hand. When he observed a slight upward jerk of the head, he stopped.
In 1914,, WWI started and Hans was drafted. He didn’t survive the war.
Mach, Ernst (1838-1916)
Born in what is now Czechoslovakia, Mach attended the University of Vienna. He embraced both pragmatism and logical positivism. His views greatly influenced BF Skinner.
In psychology, Mach is known for the optical illusion, when gray strips touch, the point of contact or near contact looks darker. These are called Mach bands. They are the result of our visual system of edge detection.
In physics, Mach described and explained how shock waves work. When an object (bullet, plane or super-train) moves faster than the speed of sound, air is compressed in front of it. This is a shock wave.
in an era when the existence of atoms was theoretical, experience and reality seemed incompatible. You could believe in atoms or experience but not both. At its extreme, empiricism becomes the belief that all that exists is sensations. We experience the world, and is the experience that counts. Berkeley used this view to reveal the flaws in its logic. If all that exists is the mind, he argued, we only exist in the mind of God. Mach , an atheist, chose the alternative option. In an 1897 lecture, he declared atoms don’t exist. Mach’s view was not widely accepted. In 1905, Einstein showed that atoms could be reliably inferred by statistics, eliminating the need to actually see them
Marty, Anton (1847-1914)
Born in Switzerland, Marty came from a devout Catholic family. Anton became a priest but followed Brentano’s pattern. He became a priest, resigned when the Pope was declared infallible, and became a professor. A colleague of Stumpf, Marty was less experimental but still a strong advocate of Brentano’s descriptive psychology. Marty is best known for his work on the intentionality of language. He was interested in the origins of language, and how it changes over time (did Homer see the same colors we do).
Helmholtz, Hermann (1821-1894)
The leading scientist of his time, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz measured the speed of a nerve impulse (a task previously thought to be impossible). He achieved world fame at a young age.
Another accomplishment was his theory of color vision. He revived Thomas Young’s theory of color vision. The eventual discovery of three types of cones supported his basic idea, though some of the details were wrong.
Another vision later discovery is still in use by eye doctors today. Helmholtz invented the ophthalmoscope (an instrument used to look into the eye and examine the retina).
Helmholtz work in perception wasn’t limited to vision. In hearing, he showed that the ear’s basilar membrane vibrates sympathetically to stimulation.
Hering, Ewald (1834-1918)
A student of Weber and Fechner, Ewald Hering achieved early fame for discovering the Hering-Breuer reflex. Hering and Breuer showed that there are receptors in the lungs which help cause respiration. His studies on space perception were also exceedingly thorough.
About mid-career, Hering challenged the dominant theory of color vision and the authority of its author, Hermann von Helmholtz. Hering maintained that the Young-Helmholtz model didn’t account well for color blindness or for afterimages of opposite colors. He proposed three retinal receptors, each using both catabolic and anabolic processes. Hering explanation was reasonable and his research well done, but the immense prestige of Helmholtz and the force of personalities allowed the discussion to degenerate into personal confrontation, not scientific debate. Similarly, when Hering challenged Fechner’s law by proposing an alternative explanation, Fechner’s response was very personal. Although Hering wasn’t afraid to take on the intellectual giants of his time, he was no match for their popularity.
Ebbinghaus, Hermann (1850-1909)
Born six years before Freud, Ebbinghaus was raised near Bonn, Germany. He attended the University of Bonn and studied language, history and philosophy. Ebbinghaus was a rationalist and wrote his dissertation on Hartmann’s philosophy of the unconscious. His interest in memory came from reading Fechner’s book on psychophysics.
A contemporary of Wundt, Ebbinghaus experimentally studied and described learning, forgetting, overlearning, and savings. Although he was the first person to publish an article on measuring the intelligence of school children (Binet and Simon used his sentence completion task in their intelligence test), Ebbinghuas is best known for his thorough study of memory and forgetting. His work is widely used and cited by cognitive psychologists today.
Although Wundt maintained that it was impossible to study higher mental processes with experiments, Ebbinghaus established procedures and principles still used today. Memory had been discussed by philosophers and studied after the fact, but no one before Ebbinghaus had studied the process of memory as it occurred. Philosophers started with existing associations and inferred backwards; Ebbinghuas studied the entire memory process by learning, forgetting and relearning material.
Although not an empiricist, he (along with Konig, Hering and Stumpf) started the second journal devoted to psychology (Journal of Psychology and Physiology of the Sense Organs). Although not a child psychologist, in 1897 Ebbinghaus created a word completion test in order to measure the intelligence of children.
Gestalt Psychology
Unique to German psychology, Gestalt psychology maintains perceptions are experienced as a whole it is not an inductive process. We have an immediate perception of the form (gestalt). This school of thought was a direct result of Brentano’s psychology.
Koffka, Kurt (1886-1941)
A student of Stumpf, Kurt Koffka assisted Wertheimer with his experiments, and advocated Gestalt psychology. Born and educated in Berlin, Koffka escaped the Nazi regime, moved to America, and taught at Smith College (Kohler taught at Swathmore).
Kohler, Wolfgang (1887-1967)
Born in Estonia and educated in Berlin, Wolfgang Kohler is best known for his insight experiments with apes. During WWI, Kohler was director of an anthropoid station on Tenerife (in the Cannery Islands). He was either there to study chimpanzees or as a spy to study Allied shipping; both interpretations are possible.
Although his children report he had a secret radio they were not to talk about, Kohler preferred to discuss his observations of Sultan (an ape). According to Kohler’s observations, many animals are able to solve problems by insight. Chimpanzees could solve a string problem (how to get a banana tied to the end of a string), and Sultan was able to join two sticks together to get his food.
In Kohler’s later work, he trained chickens to peck at the darker of two discs. After acquiring the skill, they were able to select the darker disk even when the amount of grayness changed. When the original dark disc was paired with an even darker disc, the chickens were still able to choose the darker one.
Kulpe, Oswald (1862-1915)
A student of Wundt, Oswald Kulpe is best known for “imageless thought.” In contrast to many of Wundt’s students (who believed that thought without sensations or images was impossible), Kulpe maintained that thinking need not have images present. Emphasizing higher mental processes, Kulpe and his colleagues at Wurzburg (sometimes they are called the Wurzburg School) looked less at sensations and more at thinking.
Marbe, Karl (1869-1953)
Colleague of Kulpe, Karl Marbe conducted imageless thought studies, and introduced the concept of a mental set. Essentially, people acquire a rule of how to solve problems and apply that rule even after the circumstances have changed and the rule is no longer valid.
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Wertheimer, Max (1880-1943)
Born in Prague, Maz Wertheimer studied law and philosophy at the University of Prague, and psychology under Stumpf and Kulpe. Best known for his explanation of the “phi phenomenon” (e.g., the apparent motion made by flashing lights in sequence), Wertheimer was a founder of Gestalt psychology.
In 1910, on a train ride from Vienna to Germany, Wertheimer noted that it’s possible to perceive motion when none exists. So interesting was this new idea that when the train stopped in Frankfurt, Wertheimer got off, bought a toy stroboscope which flashes pictures to make them look like they are moving, and checking into a hotel to experiment with his insight.
Wertheimer followed up his informal exploration with formal experiments using a tachistoscope. He found that when two flashes of an image are 200 milliseconds apart they are perceived as separate images, and at 30 milliseconds the images appeared simultaneous.
Although Wundt had maintained that apparent movement was a function of eye movement, Wertheimer noted that eyes can’t move in two directions at once. His solution was to propose an isomorphic model. That is, according to Wertheimer, the movement occurs in the brain. He held that the mind comes with preset principles of organization it uses to interpret sensations. For Wertheimer apparent motion was evidence that people don’t respond to isolated segments of sensation but to the whole (Gestalt) of the situation.
Gestalt principles of perceptual organization include proximity, similarity, continuity, and pragnanz (literally, good form). Using visual illusions, Gestalt psychologists were able to show that the perceptual models of the day were inadequate. Extending that view, they proposed that people perceive and think in nonlinear ways, actively influence perception, and use insight as well as trial and error learning..
French Psychology
Want to jump ahead?
- Philosophical Roots of Psychology
- Waves & Schools of Psychology
- Old Philosophers, New Ideas
- Hobbes, Galileo & Descartes
- Experimental Physiology
- American Psychology
- Japanese Psychology
- German Psychology
- Russian Psychology
- Five Paths To Truth
- Birth of Psychology
- British Empiricism
- British Psychology
- French Psychology
- Wundt
