Deck 5: Wundts Immediate Predecessors

Question 1

The German Ortgeist at the time of Wundt was academic, systematic, and formal, and encouraged rigorous experimentation.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Mysticism, romanticism, classicism, and interest in "exotic" foreign cultures and languages characterized the German Ortgeist late in the nineteenth century.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Educational and mathematical psychology were already well established when Herbart wrote his two major works in psychology during the 18th century.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Herbart proposed that one effective teaching method is to present new material, show how it can be applied, and then relate it to previously learned material and to the apperceptive mass.

Question 5

Weber's two-point threshold could be considered as one kind of just noticeable difference or jnd.

Question 6

Lotze's theory of local signs asserts that relative locations on the skin or on the retina are innate.

Question 7

Among Helmholtz's contributions to psychology are his invention of the ophthalmoscope, his analysis of auditory consonance and dissonance, and his theory of color vision.

Question 8

Fechner, with his double-aspect monism, was a major proponent of scientific materialism and of associationism.

Question 9

Fechner's experimental esthetics was a quantitative approach to the empirical study of pleasing proportions.

Question 10

Fechner's psychophysical methods are limited in use exclusively to the laboratory study of sensations.

Question 11

Who can be viewed as the founder of modern experimental psychology?

A) any of these
B) Wundt with his 1879 laboratory in Lepizig
C) Fechner with his 1860 Elements of Psychophysics
D) James with his 1875 demonstration laboratory at Harvard University

Question 12

Which of these characterized the German Ortgeist at the time of Wundt?

A) all of them
B) systematic and objective
C) concerned with rigorous experimentation
D) mystical and romantic

Question 13

Wolff's Empirical Psychology and Rational Psychology

A) first used the word "psychology" in the title of a book
B) espoused an idealistic monism
C) made extensive use of the "mental faculties" previously proposed by the phrenologists
D) opposed Cartesian and Hobbesian hedonism

Question 14

Herbart's books argued that

A) psychology should be empirical and mathematical
B) ideas are static until apperceived by repression
C) the threshold of consciousness produces the fusion of ideas
D) psychological principles should be based on sound educational practices

Question 15

E. H. Weber's law concerns the

A) perceived strength of a sensation
B) theory of local signs
C) conservation of energy
D) mechanism of color vision

Question 16

Among Helmholtz's contributions are

A) all of these
B) the principle of the conservation of energy
C) the ophthalmoscope
D) the specific fiber theory of pitch perception

Question 17

Helmholtz's concept of unconscious inference asserts that

A) depth perception is due to inferences from retinal disparity
B) perceiving a chair is an irresistible innate process
C) scientific observation is objective and impersonal
D) unconscious inference is voluntary but innate

Question 18

Du Bois-Reymond, Helmholtz, Ludwig, and Brücke

A) signed a scientific materialist "blood oath"
B) collaborated on a major handbook of physiology
C) co-authored the Handbook of Physiological Optics
D) established the new discipline of experimental esthetics

Question 19

Gustav Theodor Fechner invented the psychophysical methods of

A) all of these
B) limits (or just noticeable differences)
C) constant stimuli (or right and wrong cases)
D) reproduction (or adjustment or average error)

Question 20

On the mind-body problems, Fechner believed in

A) double-aspect monism
B) Cartesian dualism
C) Berkeleyan idealistic monism
D) physicalistic monism

Question 21

Why did Berkeley argue that there are no primary qualities in Locke's sense?

Question 22

How can Hamilton's principle of redintegration explain the phenomenon of "déjà vu?"

Question 23

What is evolutionary associationism?

Question 24

How did Swammerdam's experiment on contracting muscles disprove the idea that muscles contract because of the entry into them of animal spirits?

Question 25

What did Lloyd Morgan's canon propose?

Question 26

Who first used the term "psychology" in the title of a book?

Question 27

What, according to Herbart, determines whether an idea can enter consciousness?

Question 28

What is the two-point threshold that was measured by Weber?

Question 29

How did Helmholtz propose that we hear auditory pitch?

Question 30

Name Fechner's three psychophysical methods.
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Answers to short answer questions for Chapter 5: Wundt's Immediate Predecessors

Question 31

Characterize the German Ortgeist in the time of Wundt.

Question 32

What were some of the consequences of Herbart's proposal that ideas are dynamic?

Question 33

What educational prescription follows from Herbart's conception of the apperceptive mass?

Question 34

How did Helmholtz measure the speed of the nervous impulse, and what did he find out?

Question 35

What is a just noticeable difference, and what was Weber's law about the jnd?

Question 36

What role did unconscious inference play in Helmholtz's account of perception?

Question 37

Who signed the scientific materialist "blood oath," and what did this oath assert?

Question 38

What is Fechner's law, and what did he believe was its metaphysical role?

Question 39

What is the basic procedure in each of Fechner's psychophysical methods?