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How to investigate the Mind?
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Ask your subjects (Introspectionism)
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First-Person Privileged Access
Edward Titchener
(1867-1927)
First psychology
lab, Leipzig
Wilhelm Wundt
(1832-1920)
Introspection is not just casual thinking
about one’s inner experiences.
Assets of Introspectionism
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It deals with the subjective feeling of mental life (qualia)
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Even today, some research depends on subject’s
introspective report (do you see the light?)
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It provides hints for future research
– articulatory loop in working memory
Problems of Introspectionism:
Verbal report distorts and impoverishes the experience
Instrospectionism lacks verification (public scrutiny)
Provides access to products of thinking, rather
than the processes that underlie it (example).
Relies on conscious report: Many interesting mental
events are unconscious (e.g. memory retrieval, or visual
processes that lead to perceptual illusions).
How to investigate the mind

Ask your subjects (Introspectionism)
Look at S-R patterns (Behaviorism)
- Reaction against Instrospectionism
- Restricts psychology to truly objective, observable data
Cognitive
Psychology
Introspectionism
Behaviorism
1900
1950
2000
Behaviorism
Stimulus
Response
Study stimulus-response relations, but do NOT attempt to
understand unobservable mental processes
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
Classical Conditioning
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Neutral stimulus becomes associated with a
stimulus that already produces a response
1. sight of foodsalivation
3. bell and food seen together
4. bell salivation
Behaviorism
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Psychology is the “science of behavior.”
Emphasis on what can be directly observed.
– Stimuli  Responses
– Reinforcements / Rewards
Ignore the mind (unobservable).
Goal: predict behavior
Assets of Behaviorism

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rigorous scientific observation
controlled laboratory settings.
Applicable to certain areas (e.g., learning:
pairing of stimuli and responses)
Problems with Behaviorism

Limiting science to observable things is a
bad idea. Theories are about unobservable

Can’t account for much of human behavior.
– Language; Attention
Rats learn to follow this path … later they can deduce the
shorter path.
X
X
this ability cannot be explained only by links between stimuli
and responses. A better explanation is to pose the existence of
an internal spatial map
Cognitive Maps in Bees, von Frisch 1967

behavior of bees returning to
hive after locating nectar
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Can use a symbolic form of
communication
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Different patterns of dances
represent different meanings

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Round dance: source less than 100 yards
from hive
Figure 8 dance: greater distances
Behaviorism
Stimulus
Response
Study stimulus-response relations, but do NOT attempt to
understand unobservable mental processes
Cognitive Psychology
Stimulus
Response
Study stimulus-response relations to infer the underlying
mental processes. The contents of the mind CAN be studied
scientifically
How to investigate the mind

Ask your subjects (Introspectionism)

Look at S-R patterns (Behaviorism)

Infer mental processes (Cognitive Psychology)
– from S-R patterns (Reaction Time, Accuracy)
– from neural patterns (cognitive neuroscience)