Question 1

The author of the text states that Wundt remade psychology from a fitful enterprise of solitary scholars into a genuine scientific community. He did this in part by:

Accepted Answer

All of these options are ways in which Wundt remade psychology into a genuine scientific community. He created the first academically recognized lab in psychology, founded the first journal in experimental psychology, and created many enduring innovative methods of research. Together, these three contributions helped to establish psychology as a respected and rigorous scientific discipline.

Question 2

The author of the text states that Wundt remade psychology from a fitful enterprise of solitary scholars into a genuine scientific community. Wundt did this in several ways, which of the following is NOT one of these ways:

Accepted Answer

The author does not mention Wundt creating an enduring theory of psychology that was widely accepted by others as one of the ways he remade psychology into a genuine scientific community.

Question 3

Wundt explained the results of his experiment on the span of apprehension by saying that subjects were able to report 3-4 items because:

Accepted Answer

Wundt believed that the span of apprehension (or the number of items a person can hold in their conscious awareness at one time) was limited because only a small number of items could fall within the focus of consciousness. This meant that subjects were consciously attending to and processing only 3-4 items at a time, while other items may have fallen within the fringe of consciousness but were not in the focus of attention.

Question 4

In 1960, George Sperling disagreed with Wundt's conclusion, proposing instead that:

Accepted Answer

Sperling proposed that all items in a visual display were initially perceived, but subjects lost the memory of them due to decay while they were making verbal reports. This was in contrast to Wundt's conclusion about the limitations of cognitive processing.

Question 5

According to Wundt, the speaker of a sentence begins speaking by:

Accepted Answer

According to Wundt, the speaker of a sentence begins speaking by analyzing a complex idea into constituent ideas, meaning that the speaker breaks down the idea they want to communicate into smaller parts before constructing the sentence itself.

Question 6

E. B. Titchener consistently rejected which of the following goals for psychology?

Accepted Answer

Titchener was focused on the structural analysis of consciousness, which prioritized the identification and description of its basic elements (A). He was not interested in brain processes (C) or associations (D), but instead believed that the goal of psychology was to understand the structure of consciousness. Additionally, Titchener did not see a role for psychology in solving practical problems or addressing social issues (B).

Question 7

E. B. Titchener had three experimental tasks for his psychology one of which was?

Accepted Answer

Titchener's experimental task was to determine how the elementary sensations are connected to form complex perceptions and ideas. This task was focused on understanding the process of perception and how the mind creates meaning from sensory experiences.

Question 8

Unlike Wundt, Titchener ________ the idea of apperception, according to Titchener attention was simply ________.

Accepted Answer

Titchener rejected the idea of apperception, as he believed attention was simply sensation.

Question 9

In general, Wundt's view of the mind was more Kantian and Titchener was closer to Hume and the associationists. However regardless of these differences the dominant approach to consciousness for both was that it should_____.

Accepted Answer

Both Wundt and Titchener believed that consciousness could be analyzed into its component parts through systematic introspection. This approach was known as structuralism.

Question 10

Franz Brentano's Act psychology:

Accepted Answer

Brentano's act psychology rejected the way of Ideas and viewed the mind as actively grasping the real external world through intentional acts.

Question 11

In some way, the Gestalt movement in psychology sprang from:

Accepted Answer

The Gestalt movement in psychology was heavily influenced by Franz Brentano's revival of realism and descriptive phenomenology, which saw the mind as an active organism that organizes sensory information into meaningful wholes. The Gestalt psychologists applied this perspective to perception, proposing that our brains organize sensory information in ways that result in holistic, "gestalt" perceptions, rather than simply combining individual sensory inputs.

Question 12

Oswald Külpe at Würzburg used the Ausfragen method to do experimental research on:

Accepted Answer

Oswald Külpe used the Ausfragen method to study thinking and introspection.

Question 13

The Würzburg psychologists upset a longstanding idea about the mind-that all ideas are sensations or copies of sensations-with their apparent discovery of:

Accepted Answer

The Würzburg psychologists discovered the concept of "imageless thought," which upset the idea that all ideas were based on sensations or copies of sensations. This theory, also known as the act psychology, suggested that an idea could exist without a corresponding mental image or sensation.

Question 14

Wundt criticized the Würzburg experiments on the grounds that:

Accepted Answer

Wundt criticized the Würzburg experiments on multiple grounds. He argued that their experimental results were not stable and replicable, that they had relapsed into philosophical armchair introspection, and that it was impossible to introspect the higher mental processes. Therefore, choice D - "all of the above" - is the best answer.

Question 15

In American, the most important consequence of the debate about imageless thought (Wurzburg School) was:

Accepted Answer

The debate about imageless thought led to an increased suspicion that introspection was not a reliable tool of research. It challenged the validity of subjective reports and paved the way for more objective and empirical methods of investigation in psychology. While the debate did not directly result in a revitalized interest in Aristotle's original theories, it did mark a significant turning point in the history of psychology.

Question 16

The imageless thought findings of the Würzburg school generated controversy because:

Accepted Answer

The imageless thought findings of the Würzburg school generated controversy because they challenged the philosophical consensus about the contents of consciousness, their introspective technique deviated from Wundt's rules about experimental control, and not all laboratories could reproduce the Würzburg results.

Question 17

The use of non-sense syllables to study memory by Ebbinghaus shows his desire to:

Accepted Answer

Ebbinghaus wanted to isolate and study memory as the pure function of learning, abstracting away the effects of content. He used non-sense syllables to accomplish this because they were unfamiliar to participants and had no pre-existing associations or meanings. By studying how many repetitions of the syllables were required for participants to accurately recall them, Ebbinghaus was able to understand the function of memory without interference from other factors.

Question 18

Gestalt psychologists called the assumption by philosophers since Descartes that every sensory element in consciousness corresponds to a physical stimulus the ____________ hypothesis.

Accepted Answer

The "constancy hypothesis" is the term used by Gestalt psychologists to describe the assumption that each sensory element in consciousness corresponds directly to a physical stimulus.

Question 19

Perception of the W shape in the figure at left illustrates the Gestalt law of perception:

Accepted Answer

The answer of  Perception of the W shape in...

Question 20

You look at a photo of your mother standing in front of her house. It is easy to see that your mother is standing in front of her house with the house behind her. This illustrates the Gestalt law of:

Accepted Answer

The figure/ground law of Gestalt psychology states that our visual perception separates an image into a figure (the main object) and the ground (the background). In this case, the figure is the mother standing in front of the house and the ground is the house behind her. This is easily identifiable in the photo.

Quiz 8: The Psychology of Consciousness