Home / Summaries / Pioneers of Psychology / physical-physiological-fechner

The Sensing and Perceiving Mind: From Kant Through the Gestalt Psychologists

11 important questions on The Sensing and Perceiving Mind: From Kant Through the Gestalt Psychologists

What is the difference between Kant's noumenal and phenomenal world, and Plato's idealism?

Phenomenon had been Plato’s original Greek term for “appearance,” and in many ways Kant’s phenomenal world resembled Plato’s world of everyday experiences. But whereas Plato thought the underlying “true” world of ideal forms could be at least partially or indirectly understood, for Kant the ultimate reality of his noumenal world was completely unknowable. What he did believe to be knowable, however, were many of the major characteristics of the mind that actively creates its phenomenal experiences.

Which four reasons did Kant have for his opinion that psychology must always remain a philosophical rather than a scientific discipline?

He argued that mental phenomena, in contrast to the physical objects investigated by physical scientists, (1) have no spatial dimension, (2) are too transient to pin down for sustained observation, (3) cannot be experimentally manipulated, and perhaps most importantly of all, (4) cannot be mathematically described or analyzed. For these reasons Kant thought psychology must always remain a philosophical rather than a scientific discipline.

What does the doctrine of physiological mechanism mean, which was adopted by Helmholtz and his friends?

Although respectful of their famous teacher, Helmholtz and his friends refused to accept this implicit limitation on science. To them, the gains from using physical principles in physiology had been so great that it seemed foolish to postulate any limits to the approach. Accordingly, they rejected vitalism and adopted the doctrine of physiological mechanism, declaring all physiological processes to be potentially understandable in terms of ordinary physical and chemical principles. The processes might be highly complex and beyond current comprehension, but ultimately they must be subject to the same universal physical laws as inanimate processes.

What did Helmholtz find with his experiment on a frog?

He built a small physiological laboratory in his barracks where he studied metabolic processes in frogs. Conceived and conducted within the framework of physiological mechanism, his experiments demonstrated that the amount of energy and heat generated by frog muscles was roughly equal to the amount of energy released by the oxidation of the food it consumed. In other words, he showed that ordinary chemical reactions were capable of producing (though not necessarily that they did produce) all of the physical activity and heat generated by a living organism.

How did Helmholtz account for the time and labor it takes to wokr out a syllogism?

The difference between perception and syllogistic reasoning lies in the fact that perception occurs instantly and effortlessly, while the working out of a syllogism may be laborious and time consuming. Helmholtz accounted for this difference by assuming that the major premise of a perception has become so well learned as to be automatic and unconscious.

What is the Fechner-Weber law?

Fechner recognized that these observed relationships between physical and subjective stimulus intensities for many different senses could be expressed by the single, general mathematical formula stating that the subjective intensity (S) of a stimulus measured in jnd units will always equal the logarithm of its physical intensity (P) times some constant (k) which will vary for each sense but which may be experimentally determined. Fechner modestly called this equation, S = k log P, Weber’s law when he first published it, but it is now customarily called Fechner’s law instead.

What is the similarity and difference between Fechner's law and the power law by Stevens?

Like Fechner’s law, the power law provides only a rough approximation, holding most accurately for the middle ranges of physical stimulation and subject to certain fluctuations across individuals and situations. But it still confirms the general robustness of Fechner’s original inspiration—that certain sensory judgments can be at least approximately quantified and shown to relate in a mathematically describable way to events in the physical environment

What does Gestalt psychology focuses on?

The approach that became known as Gestalt psychology focuses on the ways the mind organizes experiences and perceptions into organized wholes that are more than the sums of their separate parts.

What does Christian von Ehrenfels mean with "form qualities"?

In 1890 the Austrian psychologist Christian von Ehrenfels (1859 1932) wrote of certain perceptual Gestaltqualitaten or “form qualities” that could not be introspectively broken down into separate sensory elements, but instead resided in the overall configurations of objects or ideas. The “squareness” of a square, for instance, and the melody of a musical piece reside not in their separate parts, but in their total configurations. A square may be constructed out of any group of four equal straight lines, as long as they are arranged in the proper relationships with one another.

How are stimuli simplified and organized according to the principles of similarity and contiguity according to Wertheimer, Koffka and Köhler?

Wertheimer, Koffka, and Köhler also emphasized that Gestalts tend to simplify and organize the perceptual fields in which they occur. Relatively complicated collections of stimuli inevitably become organized into simpler groups according to principles of contiguity and similarity.

What does Lewin mean with that every individual person resides in a unique life space?

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) extended the perceptual field concept in yet a different direction. Lewin argued that every individual person resides in a unique psychological field, or life space, which is the totality of his or her psychological situation at any given moment. The life space includes one’s physical and social environments, as they are perceived, as well as the person’s constantly changing motives and actions, or locomotion within the life space. All of these combine to create forces, or “vectors,” within the field, which combine to determine the person’s behavior.

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

Pioneers of Psychology

View summary

A unique study and practice tool
Never study anything twice again
Get the grades you hope for
100% sure, 100% understanding

Remember faster, study better. Scientifically proven.

The Sensing and Perceiving Mind: From Kant Through the Gestalt Psychologists

11 important questions on The Sensing and Perceiving Mind: From Kant Through the Gestalt Psychologists

What is the difference between Kant's noumenal and phenomenal world, and Plato's idealism?

Which four reasons did Kant have for his opinion that psychology must always remain a philosophical rather than a scientific discipline?

What does the doctrine of physiological mechanism mean, which was adopted by Helmholtz and his friends?

What did Helmholtz find with his experiment on a frog?

How did Helmholtz account for the time and labor it takes to wokr out a syllogism?

What is the Fechner-Weber law?

What is the similarity and difference between Fechner's law and the power law by Stevens?

What does Gestalt psychology focuses on?

What does Christian von Ehrenfels mean with "form qualities"?

How are stimuli simplified and organized according to the principles of similarity and contiguity according to Wertheimer, Koffka and Köhler?

What does Lewin mean with that every individual person resides in a unique life space?

Summaries related to Foundational Ideas from Antiquity - The Greek Miracle and the Presocratic Philosphers

Pioneers of Psychology

Indian Economics

Global politics

Essentials of international relations

Behavioral genetics

Management and organisational behaviour

Follow Up Engels idioom 4/5 H

International Business

Marketing fundamentals

Projectmanagement, A practical Approach-Engl…

Basic Management Accounting for the Hospital…

International business